All The Haunts Be Ours: A Folk Horror Storybook

by Eden Royce, Kim Newman, Cynthia Pelayo

Genres: Horror

252 pages, Hardcover

Published December 3, 2024

About the author

Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina now living in Southeast England. She’s a Shirley Jackson Award winner and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for her adult fiction, which has appeared in a variety of print and online publications.

Her books for young readers have received Walter Dean Myers Award Honors, and been recognized as a Bram Stoker Award winner, an Andre Norton Nebula Award Finalist, an Ignyte Award winner, and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner for outstanding children’s literature.

Find her on social media via her LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/edenroyce.

Sign up for her newsletter: https://edenroyce.eo.page/sbtyt

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book included with Severin Films second Blu-Ray box of folk horror films, All the Haunts be Ours Vol 2, which arrived just a few days ago. I haven't touched the disks yet but will make heavy use of them over the next few weeks. The first volume is one of the best collections of films I own.

Edited by Kier-La Janisse with an assist from Grady Hendrix, the collection includes a dozen new stories by many writers new to me and a couple of veterans. Although I didn't love every tale, the quality of the writing is impressive across the board, and the presentation is first rate. Some of the stories are not very horrific while others only incidentally include a folklore element. I like most of them well enough and three stood out as exceptional. Ramsey Campbell comes through with a fine entry; "Stick in the Mud" builds a great sense of inevitable dread and pays off in its conclusion. Lynda E. Rucker's "The Ferryman" takes the 19th Century American folksong "Old Man Tucker" to places it has surely never been before. My favorite though is by Steve Duffy, a writer I will definitely seek out again. "The Bricky Pond" is based on folklore from a school where drownings have taken place in the titular pond and has a strong sense of authenticity and an effective use of one of my favorite English folk monsters, the venerable Jenny Greenteeth.

Like the films included in the box, the folklore these stories draw on is global, not just English or American, so some of them feel more exotic than others. No idea if this book will ever be reprinted apart from the box, but I bet at least a couple of the stories will find their way into year's best collections.

[Ceallaigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sometimes a good secret is just what you need. A good secret, a clean kitchen, and a sharp knife. ‘You need to be ready,’ she said, looking into the baby's brown eyes. ‘You never know when the feast will commence or the trap will snap.’ Snap! Babette snapped her fingers, and the baby smiled. Everything turns out right in the end, Babette thought, for the thousandth time. One way or another, everyone eventually caught what was coming.” — from ‘Mortar Pestle Comfort Crumble’, by Chandra Mayor

I loved this perfectly creepy, dark, & unsettling, beautifully & imaginatively illustrated, collection of diverse folk horror stories from some of my favorite writers… Click here to read my full review of ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS complete with my full thoughts, further reading suggestions, & more of my favorite quotes!

★ ★ ★ ★ .75

CW // body horror, violence, domestic abuse, child death, alzheimer’s

[Matt Hickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun “Little golden book” accompanying the folk horror compendium “All the Haunts be Ours vol. 2” that, it goes without saying, should never be read to minors. All well done and well illustrated, some stretching the definition of folk horror in a good way. My favorite is “Apple Orchard Annie” by Kim Newman because of its ghostly approach to folk song and oral tradition.

[Alex Sarll]

A story about an audiologist, set mostly in high-tech hospital labs and a soundproof apartment, and which never leaves the heart of Chicago, or even references an urban legend, or exits the apparently novel obsessions of its narrator-protagonist, can be weird, horrific, pretty good – and it is. But it sure as blazes ain't folk horror. Similarly, as much as I like Cassandra Khaw, and enjoyed their story here, I'm not sure one talking fox can turn intrigues in the imperial harem into folk horror. What does qualify? Well, as with other notorious genres, I know it when I see it. But then there's the other side of the tightrope, such that an entry like Bati gives me interesting information about how curses are perceived as working in the Philippines, but doesn't have enough meat on those bones to feel like a story so much as an illustrated example. And while I love the idea of a vampire story set amidst the competition over Thoreau's legacy, I think that one perhaps assumes an American level of familiarity with his work and context, which I'm lacking. Still, some contributors definitely understood the brief. Kim Newman often gives me the sense of an encyclopaedic tribute act lacking that last crucial spark, but a horror story about the collecting of folk songs and the way enshrined variants drive out regional variations? Inspired. And I don't know Steve Duffy's work so well, assuming he's not the same one who used to be in Duran Duran, but his Jenny Greenteeth yarn is worthy of Robert Westall. Lynda E Rucker's closing The Ferryman is another winner, drifting through the long dark years to end the volume on a suitably desolate note. Overall, though, this feels as patchy as what I've so far watched of the follow-up DVD set it accompanies.

[Ned Netherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

All this mainly been reading the British Library's excellent Tales of the Weird collections but halfway through this collection it suddenly struck me:

I'd been reading the tales of dead people all year but this was a collection of brand new writing from people who are alive and it's simply mindblowing.

Obviously I already was familiar with Kim Newman and Ramsey Campbell but everyone eles was new to me and, damn me, this book is going to cost me a lot of money because they left me hungry for more of their writing.

It's a roller coaster ride of incredible feelings. Outstanding and thank you for introducing me to so many modern geniuses!

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly just okay with the exception of a few stories (especially that wild one Sarah Gailey wrote about the origins of Groundhog Day) but I'll give it 3 stars for the awesome illustrations and the overall design of the book.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars

An extension of Severin Video’s folk horror film collections, “All the Haunts Be Ours” is a compendium of original short stories by contemporary writers working in the same tradition. First off, the design is gorgeous. Modeled after Little Golden Books, the cover, illustrations, and typeface all use gold, black, and white in a way that makes the book an absolute pleasure to hold and leaf through.

As with most anthologies, the stories are a mixed bag, but there are more successful and semi-successful entries than there are clunkers. I was impressed by the well curated roster of authors and the varied approaches to folk horror. True to form for me, the pieces that resonated most were those set in a present that remains haunted by the past.

This was a fun read to usher in the growing chill of October. And because so few people have reviewed it, I felt as if I were participating in a secret ritual. If this sounds like your jam, hunt it down.