Kayleigh Dobbs – The End I’m not always the quickest to notice things… when I turned a few pages and was greeted with the words ‘The End’ I’ll admit I was puzzled. It took me a second to recall that this was the name of the collection, and what a fitting end for this collection of tales of apocalyptic events. Maybe the mushroom clouds on the front should have clued me in, too, but as I said, I’m not always the quickest, not this late in the year. The best collections feel like the stories belong together. It’s the case here. It never for a second feels like a disjointed selection, but ones written to explore the end. That said, it doesn’t mean we have the same story over and again. Kayleigh Dobbs shows diversity in crafting these stories. We kick off with ‘The Claim They Stake’. When Billy goes to check on Mr Tiley, his elderly neighbour, his worst fears are realised. Yes, Mr Tiley is a lizard man. But why will no one believe him? This story leans heavily into lizard-people conspiracies, and as such, Billy is met with disbelief. Even though the story starts with Billy fleeing Tiley’s house, I too doubted his sanity. The story morphs to be about how this conspiracy has affected Billy’s life, his relationships, and his job. It’s an effective opening to the collection. We move on to ‘Just Like Baking’. Instant menace is brought in by the mention of ‘Thistle Cottage’. Paired with an intriguing title, I was curious from the very start of this one. We move into an ancient ritual which is then hit with a modern sledgehammer to disorient. This story is such fun. Kayleigh’s sense of humour really came across in her collection, Corpsing. This feels like it’s more confident and composed in that voice. Alongside the humour is a healthy does of horror, with some pretty gross imagery in the quickly escalating finish. What I’d noticed, already by this point was that there was a variety in tone here, and it was very welcome. It meant I never quite knew what to expect from the next story. Also, I did love the simile, “Blacker than the devil’s eyes.” By the time I reached ‘Catch Fire’, I realised that relationships were a key part of the collection. Here, we have two sisters, Jen who has always been spoilt, and Emily willing to give her one last chance by visiting her house. Things keep escalating here, with Jen’s past crimes becoming more awful in a spoilt way. But when Emily and her husband Matt decide to leave, they find that’s not going to be particularly easy, and what are those strange marks on Jen and her friend’s bodies? The fourth story, ‘Dead’ was my personal favourite. The first couple of paragraphs of set up are fantastic, and oh boy does it escalate from there. I don't want to say too much, but it's such a great perspective for the start of some apocalyptic. There's fun in the familiarity of it, and the narrative voice of powerless frustration so fitting.
A collection about the end would need to feature the rapture, but like many of the other stories in the collection ‘Omega’ twists in a wicked way. This is perhaps the most sinister of the stories in the collection, with ideas of trust coming across strongly.
Fittingly, the story finishes with ‘The End’. Here, Kayleigh Dobbs uses a more lyrical style, becoming poetic as it explores what comes after death with a particularly menacing second person narrative. The End is a great collection. The stories are fun, but also thought-provoking. Some of the scenarios are familiar, but there are original twists. At its heart though, are characters that feel real, characters I wanted to read about, characters I wanted to come out of this okay. Having called her collection The End, Kayleigh was never going to let that happen! Highly recommended.
Why choose between horror and humor if you can have both at once?
Four witches who used directions as pseudonyms were interrupted by East’s younger sister while trying to summon a demon in “Just Like Baking.” I loved the playful tone of this story and how the sibling relationship affected such a serious and dangerous spell. The horror elements were a nice touch, too, given the powerful forces these characters were dealing with and how cautious they needed to be in order to get what they wanted from their demon.
As much as I enjoyed reading this, there was one thing holding me back from giving it a higher rating. It involved the way mental illness was discussed in this book and how characters who struggled with it were written about. For example, there were times when I was uncomfortable with how Jen’s mood swings were described in “Catch Fire” or how Billy’s paranoia in “The Claim They Stake” was used to drive him and other characters to do all sorts of awful things they never would have otherwise done. I know so many people who have either previously dealt with mental illness or are currently struggling with it that I’d be hesitant to mention this book to them without including caveats about the way this topic was handled and how negative stereotypes about people who have mental illnesses were sometimes reinforced. With that being said, I still thought Ms. Dobbs was a great storyteller and would like to read more from her in the future if she’s willing to accept this feedback in the warm and friendly tone in which I hope she will receive it.
“Dead” showed what happened when a stubborn woman named Emily decided to remodel her basement but kept running into frustrating and confusing obstacles as she pulled up more and more of the floor. I adored the plot twists in this tale, especially once the main character suffered a life-threatening wound while working. Emily wasn’t always an easy character to like due to her refusal to listen to others, but she sure was an entertaining one as the consequences of her choices began to change her life forever. I know this is a little vague, but the details of her terrible injury and what happened afterwards are best left up to other readers to explore for themselves.
The End was a memorable mixture of horror and humor.
The End is a collection of short stories centred around death. We see a series of characters meet their demise - or in some cases, their supposed demise. A mixture of hilarious and horrifying, this is one of the best micro-collections I've read, and a few of the stories have instantly become new favourites!
The Claim They Stake - one of the more frantic, action-based pieces. The tension and paranoia are tangible, and you can feel your own shoulders tightening with the protagonist's plight as over the course of a few minutes things go from weird, to bad, to worse. A great and thrilling way to open the collection.
Just Like Baking - an interesting inclusion of witches. This story being in the collection does a great job of widening the theme and ensuring the stories branch out into plenty of the sub-genres of horror. Kayleigh's writing style shines in this one; the narrative might be third person but still somehow portrays a sassiness which greatly elevates both the humour and pace of this entry.
Catch Fire - almost too quick! This is one of the pieces I would most like to see fleshed out into its own novella. The family dynamics, the lead character's struggles with her sister, plus the hinted-at darkness of the cult behind the action are all there but left me wanting way way more!
Dead - hilarious. A new instant favourite both in and out of this collection. The lead character is almost too relatable - I like to think I'd have marginally better survival instincts than her, but truth be told, I could imagine exactly this fate being bestowed upon me.
Omega - in my eyes, the darkest and most grim entry in the collection. I felt a bit sick as the story developed, and I was wincing several times as the predicament the characters were in heightened (literally). Horrifying beyond words, and the nastiest of the bunch, but also one of the most impactful and probably most effective pieces in the book. It definitely stayed in my mind for the rest of the day after I'd read it.
Rounded off with a creepy first-person epilogue, this collection doesn't have a weak link. Each story got read from start to finish, which is a feat considering my terrible attention span. My only criticism is that the stories were all so short and left me wanting more!
The End is a brilliant collection of short stories by Kayleigh Dobbs, and Number Thirty-Five in the Black Shuck Shadows series. These stories are dark, intense, and phenomenal, and Dobbs’s writing is amazing.
The title is indicative of the theme of the collection, but the stories are delightfully very different from one another:
“The Claim They Stake” is an intense and driving story about a man who may or may not be suffering from paranoia while his life is crumbling, and it is really more engrossing than that statement makes it seem. “Just Like Baking,” though, is a wicked and humorous tale about a coven performing a dangerous ritual. By contrast, “Catch Fire” is a dark and serious story comprising emotional abuse and an ominous foreshadowing that delivers in an unexpected way.
“Dead” has one of the best opening lines ever and is a fun twist on a popular theme. But “Omega” creeped me right out. It’s very evocative and full of tension, and it’s just a horrifying story. The final story, “The End,” is a deep and kind of terrifying short prose about, well, the end.
But one of the most impressive things about this collection is how the author’s voice subtly changes to match the plot and tone of each story. It’s absolutely brilliant and brilliantly done. Then there’s the character interactions, the dialogue, the significant relationships between the characters, the incredible storylines …
I cannot recommend this shelf-worthy collection enough. I look forward to reading more from this author.
A collection of short tales that look at answering the question, "How will the end come?" - and in some cases, adding "What's next?"
The End is a short story collection by Kayleigh Dobbs exploring, as the name implies, how things will end for our protagonists. That doesn't mean that all the stories are the same, in fact quite the contrary. Whether focusing on a personal finality or an apocalyptic event, these six stories effectively portray the dread, the pain and the fear you feel when you know that your time is up.
A part of what makes these tales work so well for me is Dobbs' ability to create fleshed out and relatable characters in such a short period of time. Whether it's someone who's realising their conspiracy theorist partner is too far gone to help, a woman who's devoted her life to her faith, or a witch who's frustrated about babysitting their almost 100-year old little sister on an important night, this read packed so much more of a punch because I cared what would happen to the people involved. This is a remarkable achievement in such short reads, with all six stories combined totally around 120 pages.
My personal favourites were 'Catch Fire' - a story that truly got under my skin, reminding me of a tense family gathering seen through the lens of Karyn Kusama's The Invitation - and 'Just Like Baking', a tale of witches carrying out a ritual on a rainy night that kept taking a turn when I least expected. The book is never predictable, with Dobbs always finding new ways of keeping me on my toes.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The End, and will be eagerly keeping my eyes peeled for the author's next book.
Kayleigh starts things off dreary and quirky with this collection. These stories never stray from their sense of imminent doom, yet, surprising light-hearted (and typically dark) humor is speckled throughout these apocalyptic stories within this collection of different terrifying "Ends". Humor and horror are mostly like oil and water for me- a mixture I usually find taking me far out of a story I may have been finding myself enamored with- much like the campiness of Low-B horror flicks that bring my eyes to roll. The bits of humor in this collection never once did that for me though, which I found myself consciously stunned by. Kayleigh somehow finds a way to make you chuckle to yourself, just to then take you to a place you hope is to never become reality in the very next paragraph. The best thing about this collection is its progression! I wanted more dread with each coming story, and I wasn't disappointed. From front cover to back, this collection is a railroad to hell . . . slowly taking you deeper as the pages turn. Once you get to the true and final end, things change drastically. There's not a single humorous bit in the last story, and the final pages of the collection grab you by the arm and hurl you through a dismal abyss where all hope has been eviscerated.
I've followed Kayleigh's work for a number of years now, and watched her find her voice, which has always been in unfaltering in her quest to disgust and amuse. Her short story collection "The End" is neither horror or comedy, it goes hand in hand, a perfect melding of both, exploring the utter ridiculousness of death and how we get there. There's a variety of tales, from bickering witches, human sacrifice, lizard Illuminati, and politics of ghosts vs zombies. I found myself laughing at some of the lines out loud, despite what was happening to the characters on the page.
Just as each story handles a different horror trope and creeps the reader out, it equally brings a dark sense of sardonic humour to proceedings.
There's something for everyone here, as Kayleigh clearly has a talent for vanta black humuor. I have read several of her short stories in the past and would love to see her pour herself into a bigger piece of work. Whilst this collection doesn't answer what happens at he end, it certainly questions it.
I was provided a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What a fantastic collection this is from Kayleigh Dobbs. Dobbs' writing is witty and concise and each story ends with a totally unpredictable and often hilariously odd twist. My favourites were Catch Fire and Omega - give me more of that quirky cult/religious-themed dark stuff, Kayleigh! So good. So entertaining.
I adore how dinky these Black Shuck Shadows books are - they really are fabulous for any emergency reading situation - I devoured this book in one sitting with it hidden discretely on my lap when I should REALLY have been paying attention to the riveting work TEAMS meeting I was partaking in (Shhhh!)
I love these collections from Black Shuck Books - I think I am going to need a new book shelf.
I loved this collection of short stories. The story Dead was very inventive with a ghost/zombie combination. In Catch Fire, the sense that something was wrong developed into a situation that went sideways. Just Like Baking provided a relatable character in the kid that messes up an important spell. The Claim They Stake about a person’s paranoia that ends up being true, seemed like something out of Dr. Who. In Omega, a parish led astray caused a sense of terror to the very end. In The End, the concepts of the end were explored. Overall, I liked how the stories were linked by their endings. Each story was unique, and I enjoyed each and every one of them. I highly recommend this book.
I'm a bit of a sucker for short stories (two collections down). I love writing and reading them, so when I saw that Kayleigh Dobbs, an avid indie author supporter, had released a debut collection, I jumped all over it. As anyone who has read my work will know, I'm also partial to dark and twisted humour, so this certainly had a headstart. The stories threaded together nicely, not one feeling out of place or forced. Sometimes, collections feel thrown together, titbits of old and new, but you can tell this was carefully crafted. Very enjoyable. 'Dead' and 'Catch Fire' were my personal favourites.
A great collection that has something for everyone. With stories ranging from folk horror to humour, this collection warns you that there is an infinite amount of ways that our world could end, and that may not even be the worst thing that could happen to us. From zombies to witchcraft each story is realised beautifully, though my favourite in the collection (and also probably the darkest) is Omega. Another great Shadows collection.
I recently read this and loved every single second of it. I am, again, a sucker for short stories/anthologies and this one did not disappoint! Kayleigh was able to bring great horror in every single story while still sprinkling in some humor which delighted me even more. This was a quick and super fun read! I think horror fans from all walks and tropes will find things in here they love.
Enjoyable collection of dark stories which are linked with a light touch. Dobbs' storytelling voice is fluid and engaging and I loved the elements of dark humour. A writer I hope to see more from.
A micro collection of short stories based around various apocalyptic scenarios. The stories all balance horror and humour well and take on a feeling of horror comedy, thanks largely to Dobb's wonderfully sardonic prose and characters which were evocative of Rachel Harrison. I found the latter three stories to be the strongest, particularly Dead and Omega which lent themselves well to the short format. Though brief, it was a good taster for Dobb's writing and I'm very excited to see something in a longer form from her in the future.
This is a collection of horror short stories that will leave you on the edge of your seat. Reptilian monsters, dysfunctional covens, and cults/religion gone wrong. I enjoyed every second. While the stories are short, they are well rounded. The only reason I wanted more is because I could’ve read whole books based on these stories.
The humor was on point. The story “Just Like Baking,” had me laughing out loud.
On the flip side it was also terrifying. I feel like I held my breath through all of “Omega.”
I would highly suggest this to anyone who wants a quick gripping horror read. 👏🏻
As always, check the triggers. We always read horror responsibly around here. 🖤