I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Shivers Collection by Joe Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, Owen KingPublished by Amazon Original Stories on April 15 2025
Genres: Adult, Horror
Pages: 174
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: An uneven but solid bunch of stories, I was ultimately won over by three that were very good indeed.
This is my first time reading a collection of Amazon original stories, and overall it was a fun experience. Below I’ll give a brief review and rating of each of the five stories. Let me know which ones sound good to you!
JACKKNIFE by Joe Hill
This was a very creepy story about a man who encounters a killer tree, and I liked it a lot.
Dennis Lange, a college professor, is in all sorts of trouble when he is forced to move out of his house after his wife catches him sexting with one of his students at school. He rents an Airbnb, and while taking a walk one day, he encounters a strange sight: a huge sycamore that appears to be halfway wrenched out of the ground. Embedded in its trunk is an old jackknife, and strange phrases are carved into the tree next to the knife. With a misguided sense of nostalgia, he decides to remove the knife and takes it home.
The next day, Dennis spots the tree again—but it has moved. And the next day, the same thing happens. Trees can’t walk, can they? Then why does it feel like the tree is stalking him? Dennis is about to find out the hard way.
Hill does a great job of building suspense around the tree, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. He gives Dennis a nice backstory, painting him as a guy who got himself into trouble, but it’s not completely his fault. The ending was a bit abrupt and “out there,” but up to that point I was terrified!
THE INDIGO ROOM by Stephen Graham Jones
This story was not good, unfortunately. I was very surprised because I usually love the author’s work.
The story takes place in a corporate setting. Jennifer is a manager for the company, and during a meeting, she begins to see odd things in the conference room. When the lights go down, she thinks she sees one of her coworkers without a head. Later, an accident in the elevator leads her to believe she might be seeing the future.
The author’s scattered writing style is present here, but it doesn’t work at all in this setting. I was both bored and confused while reading this story, and it wasn’t until the end, when Jennifer’s son Cole takes on a very emotional role, that things picked up. It almost felt like Jones knew the ending before he started writing but couldn’t figure out how to get there in a way that made sense.
THE BLANKS by Grady Hendrix
This was my favorite of the bunch, and it was a really good one!
Rachel and her husband have been bringing their two kids to Jeckle Island for years. Every summer they move into their Jeckle Island house for two months of sunny beaches, drinks and cookouts with the neighbors. Everyone on Jeckle Island knows about the Blanks, and they all know the rules: if you see a Blank, you ignore it and look away. You pretend it isn’t there. Even the kids have the rules drilled into them.
But one day, Rachel’s young son Callum sees a Blank attack one of their neighbors—and the Blank sees Callum. Rachel is terrified, because she knows exactly what comes next…
The beauty of this story is the way Hendrix creates unease right from the beginning. You have a happy family spending an idyllic summer at the beach, but the reader knows something is off. The author never explains what the Blanks are, but leaves it up to the reader’s imagination, which makes them even scarier. I also loved the way everyone is in complete denial about the Blanks and what they do. It was simply chilling!
NIGHT AND DAY IN MISERY by Catriona Ward
I loved this one too! This is a more serious, heartbreaking story that the others, about a woman whose husband and son died in a car accident, and she’s decided to end her life, hoping to be reunited with her son.
Stella is retracing the steps her ex husband and son took before they ended up in the lake, dead from drowning. She’s come to the same hotel they spent the night in, and Stella has plans to visit the fateful scene of their accident and join her son in the watery depths. But then a boy appears in her hotel room, a boy that looks like her son, but older. And he’s trying to tell her something important.
Catriona Ward’s writing is so good, and I felt for the main character Stella, who has so much grief in her past and can only see one solution to ending it. This story has lots of potential triggers, including spousal abuse, alcoholism, death of a child and suicide ideation. There’s also a Sixth Sense vibe that I really loved.
LETTER SLOT by Owen King
This took a while to get going and I was bored for the first half of the story. Maybe not the best pacing for a short story, just saying. A young boy and his mother are struggling to make ends meet, when the boy comes across an almost magical way to turn their luck around.
Letter Slot had some creepy moments, but the ending disappointed me, and so it was just an OK read.
I also want to mention that in several of these stories there are dogs who are killed off, and once again I’m wondering why writers think animal cruelty is necessary for a good horror tale. I’m at the point where whenever there’s a dog in the story, I expect it’s going to meet a bad end. Sigh.
But aside from that, I’m glad I took a chance on this collection. It was a nice change of pace to read shorter works of fiction!
I love a good collection of stories! Even though not all of them were equally good it still looks like there were a couple new favorites. I’d for sure want to read this actually!
It’s definitely worth reading!
How funny – I reviewed Jackknife today too. I hate reviewing short stories because it’s so easy to spoil them, but I love how you did it. I’m separating mine and adding some favorite quotes to mix it up some. Of course I had to read Jackknife first! I think they did a great job with the covers and love the Hill and Ward ones the most.
I need to check back and see if you’ve reviewed any other stories:-)
Thanks for the detailed reviews! I think I’d like to try some of these, and your ratings are a huge help. I’d want to read the Joe Hill and Grady Hendrix stories in any case, and the Catriona Ward one sounds great too. As a side note, the audiobook I’m listening to now has an intro from the author with trigger warnings, and she makes a point of saying that all animals in the story will be fine! (In fact, her policy is never to include bad things happening to the dogs and other animals in any of her books)
I love that! I wish more authors made that decision:-)
I thought at first it was an anthology but that doesn’t seem the case! Well it seems most of them were to your liking so that’s a big plus!
It’s always interesting to see how authors write short stories, I was surprised by some of them:-)
At least you liked most of them. 🙂
Yes, overall I’m glad I read them:-)
I wanted to check out this collection too.
The Blanks sounds like it should be first on my list, but is it one that features the animal cruelty you mentioned? I hope not because it sounds very good.
The Blanks does have a dog die, but it’s in the past and is just mentioned, so overall not a deal breaker for me.
This sounds good overall. I enjoy Joe Hill’s books but I haven’t read Owen King yet. I agree on the animal cruelty thing too, I’ve read a lot of horror with that theme. I skim past those scenes when I can .
Good idea, they are very hard to read.
I am super into the killer tree! I’d definitely check that one out. I’m intrigued by The Indigo Room, but I’m not sure it’d work for me based on what you’ve said, but the Grady Hendrix one sounds promising! These all sound pretty intriguing, though I’m not happy to hear about all the poor dogs. I really don’t get why it still seems so popular to have that in stories since so many people dislike it–such a bummer!
I wish I understood why writers think killing dogs makes the story better:-( And as for Stephan Graham Jones, I think his style is better in full length novels.
Bad authors, do not kill dogs!! That said, I am glad you enjoyed this collection even if I am sorry that the one by Graham Jones didn’t work for you!!
Yeah, what’s up with the poor dogs??
Looks like a good group of authors, though the only one I’ve read so far is Joe Hill and I’ve had mixed success with this stories. I would like to try all the others one of these days.
It was very good overall, and I like to see how some of my favorite authors write short fiction.
I don’t really read short story collections but these do sound good and no wonder with all these wonderful authors.
Lynn 😀
I haven’t read Joe Hill in a long time, but that killer tree story sounds good! Glad you enjoyed these for the most part and I’ve got some new books to check out. Great reviews!
https://lisalovesliterature.bookblog.io/2025/05/16/arc-review-love-canter-action-by-katie-gilbert/