Our Capacity for Evil: A Collection of Short Horror Stories

by Jennifer-Crystal Johnson

We’ve all got it in us… the capacity for doing terrible things. Most of us suppress this part of ourselves or simply express it in more constructive ways, but it’s still there. Whichever part of us we feed more usually determines what kind of person we are.

But what if ordinary people were put in extraordinarily bad situations? Circumstances for which the only answer seems to be… murder? These five short horror stories examine that concept in some extreme – and extremely frightening – cases.

33 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 9, 2015

About the author

Jennifer-Crystal Johnson is originally from Germany, but was raised all over. She has published one novella under her former last name, The Outside Girl: Perception is Reality (Publish America, 2005) and, more recently, a poetry book, Napkin Poetry (Broken Publications, 2010). One of her short stories, The Clinic, has recently been featured on Jack Meets Jill (dot net) and her poetry has appeared in various anthologies including The Lightness of Being (International Library of Poetry, 2000), Theatre of the Mind (Noble House, 2003), Invoking the Muse (Noble House, 2004), and Our 100 Most Famous Poets (Famous Poets Press, 2004). She currently works as a freelance writer and editor for Phati'tude Literary Magazine published by the IAAS. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her author web site can be found at www.soulvomit.com and her publishing company is Broken Publications: www.brokenpublications.com.

Reviews

[Joe Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was drawn to this short story anthology for its excellent cover, and a New Year's Resolution I made to read more short fiction in 2015. This was a beautifully written anthology of four dark stories, two with male protagonists, and two with female, all engaged in various heinous activities--some justified, some less so. Ms. Johnson's writing is consistently excellent and engaging. The last three stories are particularly excellent.

[Ceelee · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, I have to say I received a free copy of this book from Reading Deals Review Club in exchange for my honest review.

Now I need to point out this is *not* a 400-plus page book as indicated on Goodreads. Amazon shows it is 33 pages long which is definitely not a book and not even a decent short story collection. It was like one of those samplers you can get that has several very short stories to introduce you to an author's work. It was very disappointing. I Wish the writer had concentrated on one of the stories and created a full length novel because some of the stories show potential. As it stands the only thing I felt was these tales were written simply for shock value and to make a quick buck from people who believed it was a full length book and actually a study of our capacity for evil. There is no depth to the stories, no character development, no action and consequence which even in a short story should be there. It took less than an hour to read and I felt not the best way to spend my time when i could be reading something with more substance. This is the second disappointing "book" I have received from the Reading Review Club and I have learned to look more carefully ata book before I choose one now and I am inclined not to patronize the site any more.

You wanted honesty...you got it.