I received this book for free as part of a First Reads give-away, and I'm jolly glad I did, too.

The Haunted Grove is a collection of nine stories ranging in length from the flash fiction The Well to the eponymous novelette. The styles of writing in each of the stories are as varied as their lengths, as is the particular kind of horror being evoked. From the simple prose narrative of the opening Three Winters that uses a quaint coming-of-age tale to explore the circumstances leading to an ordinary person committing terrible deeds, to the indecipherable The Secret Season, which is either two pages of purple prose or an evocative piece of prose poetry depending on one's inclination.

Personal favourites included the aforementioned very-short story The Well that managed to chill me more in its single page then many horror books have done in several hundred times that. I also had a soft spot for Rain Songs; one of the simplest tales in the collection and with undertones of noir fiction, it built up slowly but concisely to its satisfying conclusion. In fact rushed endings to a couple of the stories were the only real fault I discerned in the collection. That being said, in the horror genre erring on the side of brevity and allowing the reader to scare themselves is undeniably preferable to rambling on and ruining the carefully constructed allusion of terror. Thence, so as not to ramble on, I'll end this review and recommend this book to any fans of well written horror. ( )

I received this book for free as part of a First Reads give-away, and I'm jolly glad I did, too.

The Haunted Grove is a collection of nine stories ranging in length from the flash fiction The Well to the eponymous novelette. The styles of writing in each of the stories are as varied as their lengths, as is the particular kind of horror being evoked. From the simple prose narrative of the opening Three Winters that uses a quaint coming-of-age tale to explore the circumstances leading to an ordinary person committing terrible deeds, to the indecipherable The Secret Season, which is either two pages of purple prose or an evocative piece of prose poetry depending on one's inclination.

Personal favourites included the aforementioned very-short story The Well that managed to chill me more in its single page then many horror books have done in several hundred times that. I also had a soft spot for Rain Songs; one of the simplest tales in the collection and with undertones of noir fiction, it built up slowly but concisely to its satisfying conclusion. In fact rushed endings to a couple of the stories were the only real fault I discerned in the collection. That being said, in the horror genre erring on the side of brevity and allowing the reader to scare themselves is undeniably preferable to rambling on and ruining the carefully constructed allusion of terror. Thence, so as not to ramble on, I'll end this review and recommend this book to any fans of well written horror. ( )