Howls From Hell

Howls From Hell is a horror anthology collecting together sixteen stories. I have never read an anthology so this was a lot of fun. If you enjoy horror, then you should enjoy some of these stories. I do have some favorites but overall these were all really good. Some of the stories did drag and some I felt like were a little too short. I think my favorites are Junco Creek by S.E. Denton and Suspended in Light by Alex Wolfgang, I would buy these if they were a book. Thank you to NetGalley and HOWL Society Press for the ARC.

Howls from Hell, published by the HOWL Society, is an anthology of short horror fiction not to be missed! This collection contains stories from numerous up and coming authors, some making their publishing debut and others a bit more established, and contains works spanning the horror subgenres from cosmic to sci-fi to psychological to cursed media and more! Plus this collection is blessed by a foreword by none other than Grady Hendrix (Horrorstor, My Best Friend's Exorcism, etc.). This is an outstanding collection that is a MUST READ for all fans of short horror fiction.

This book came into being in response to the horrific events of 2020. Around April of that year a Redditor posted to the /r/horrorlit subreddit (a horror literature message board moderated by Hendrix) inquiring if others might be interested in forming an online horror book club during the pandemic. Many readers and writers, eventually including myself, joined the freshly created Discord server to read and discuss books in the genre. From that day on the server has grown. Members participate in reading and discussing a book of the week, writers discuss the business and craft, and ever increasing numbers of people find channels to chat about all things horror. Over time, some of the writers in this group, The Horror-Obsessed Writing and Literature (HOWL) Society, were inspired to work together to create an anthology of original work to be published and shared with the world. Thus The HOWL Society Press and this book were born.

First, as an artist, I want to commend my fellow members for creating an opportunity to publish their own work. So many artists wait to be given permission by someone else to share their work (or even worse, create in the first place). Well, that's not these folks. They grabbed Cthulhu by the madness-inducing tentacles and held on for the ride! Through a process of group critique and editing these authors have created an anthology of outstanding new fiction.

Second, I want to urge you to stop reading this review and purchase this book immediately! Seriously, stop reading and go now. From Hendrix's heartwarming foreword (one of the best forwards I've read) through each story, this book oozes quality. If I were rating these out of 10, almost all of them would be 7+, with several 9s and 10s in the mix. One of these stories (which happened to be one of my favorites) is probably long enough to even be considered a novelette. There are some really wonderful tales in these pages!

I hope you'll check it out, I'm glad I did.

(Note: although I am a member of the HOWL Society I am not published in this collection and am in no way profiting from sales of this anthology).