Dread

by Marina Somma (Author & Illustrator)

For those of you who grew up on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, you will understand how sometimes horror sticks with you. It follows you home and hides beneath your bed, or lurks in your closet with shining black eyes that you can never quite spot.

But when you grow up, true horror becomes something else entirely. Dread is an illustrated series of short horror stories for those adults. It finds the tiny cracks in your psyche and worms its way in, chilling you to your core. Because when it comes down to it, what are you most afraid of as an adult?

Is it still the idea that a monster is hiding under your bed? Or is it the reality that the monster is actually in your own head? Each story in the anthology will disturb, haunt, and unsettle you.

Genres: Horror

173 pages, Paperback

Published August 28, 2019

About the author

Marina is the author and illustrator of the debut horror anthology Dread: A Series of Short Horror Stories for Adults.

She lives on the East Coast of the United States, where she works as a Freelance Writer.

Marina loves all things Horror, Fall, Halloween, Pumpkin (but not all things Pumpkin Spice!), and Universal's Halloween Horror Nights.

When she isn't writing, you can find her and her husband Vincent spending time with their animals, binge-watching TV shows, and traveling.

Reviews

[JasonA · Rating 2 out of 5]

The majority of the stories are written in 2nd person, so it feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. There were a few standouts, but most of the stories were underwhelming. They felt more like writing prompts instead of a completed tale. Too many of the stories relied on a shadowy figure in the distance or just out of view, so it all felt pretty repetitive after awhile.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag with this one. This book really needed an editor purely for some technical things, namely typos and POV consistency. The first couple of stories weren't doing it for me, they were very similar, and I wasn't invested in anything. Part of this was probably the second person perspective, it was jarring and I wasn't connected to the narrative. I wish the text had time to breathe and do more showing rather than telling. Things happened, the narrative told me so, but I didn't always feel the creep factor

I liked the concepts of some of these, but some really needed to be fleshed out with details and emotion. I really liked Famine and Crypt, and Lost and Abyss showed promise.

I liked all the drawings at the beginning of each chapter, sometimes the formatting was off, and it was at the end of the previous story, rather than the beginning of the corresponding story. I think the placement of the image works have been better at the end, personally, but that's not really a criticism, I simply like seeing the image after I've taken in the narrative! Overall, this collection wasn't quite for me, but I appreciate the author sharing this on Reddit when it was free.

[Phillip Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. There were some truly great ideas in here that left a mark on me. I found the middle stories of "Lost," "Float," "Abyss," and "Famine" worth the Kindle price alone.

[Lexxi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounded down

The artwork was amazing and by far the most impressive part of the book. I read the first 3 stories and thought about giving up, but based on the other reviews, I decided to push through. A few of the stories were good but most were repetitious and predictable; paranormal thing is following someone... and it gets them. Repeat.

The stories were written in the 2nd person, which was interesting since that's so uncommon. However, a few stories had paragraphs that would randomly switch to the 1st person before jumping back and that was really jarring and irritating. Besides that, the book was in need of a strong proofread - numerous misspellings, wrong words, etc.

[Richard Mascia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read. Things get creepy and uncomfortable, but that's exactly what you want to feel when reading a horror story. Trust me, these stories give you all the feels and I recommend reading with the lights on. Definitely one of my favorite new reads that came just in time for the fall season to get you ready for Halloween.

[Lolapaige · Rating 2 out of 5]

While a few of these stories were pretty good this book badly needed editing! I can't even keep up with the amount of errors. Several times it switched from "you" to "I" and completely threw me off. It was a short read but unfortunately the mistakes caused it to drag for me and lead me to a 2 star rating.