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When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead
A faceless man stalks a woman’s nightmares in Hollywood. A Kanontsistóntie is summoned to seek revenge in a monastery. A move from the Projects to Manhattan leads to ominous shadows closing in. Two sisters discover a secret room in their farm, unearthing a sinister power.
When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead is an anthology of dark, unsettling writing from some of the most exciting contemporary BIPOC writers. Blending Gothic, horror, folklore, fantasy and fairy-tale, these eerie short stories will disturb, move and humour you. Death is ever-present in the pages of They Saw the Dead, blending with notions of home, memory, grief and belonging, as well as gentrification, white supremacy and colonisation.
Edited by Lauren T. Davila, They Saw the Dead explores what it is to be truly haunted.
When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead is an anthology of dark, unsettling writing from some of the most exciting contemporary BIPOC writers. Blending Gothic, horror, folklore, fantasy and fairy-tale, these eerie short stories will disturb, move and humour you. Death is ever-present in the pages of They Saw the Dead, blending with notions of home, memory, grief and belonging, as well as gentrification, white supremacy and colonisation.
Edited by Lauren T. Davila, They Saw the Dead explores what it is to be truly haunted.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 2022
8 people are currently reading
1734 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 14, 2022
When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead is a collection of gothic stories by BIPOC writers, exploring ghosts, witches, death, curses, and dreams amongst other things. As the title might suggest, a lot of the stories deal with death in some way, from ghosts and memories to legacies and escape. Some of the stories explore colonisation and gentrification, self and belonging, and all the while there's a sense of considering who gets to tell gothic stories.
Some of my personal favourites were: 'The Mountain Air', a strange tale of a trip to a cabin that gets weird; 'We Have Always Lived in the Projects', an unsettling look at gentrification (with a fantastic title); the very real horror of 'Headmaster'; and 'The Candlemaker's Daughter', which tells a familiar story in a different way. I enjoyed that the stories varied in length but were generally on the shorter side, meaning there was lots of variation and they were generally tight and concise. It's a great collection for diving into atmospheric stories and exploring a range of modern gothic set across various places and time periods.
Some of my personal favourites were: 'The Mountain Air', a strange tale of a trip to a cabin that gets weird; 'We Have Always Lived in the Projects', an unsettling look at gentrification (with a fantastic title); the very real horror of 'Headmaster'; and 'The Candlemaker's Daughter', which tells a familiar story in a different way. I enjoyed that the stories varied in length but were generally on the shorter side, meaning there was lots of variation and they were generally tight and concise. It's a great collection for diving into atmospheric stories and exploring a range of modern gothic set across various places and time periods.
February 18, 2022
Really excellent -- keep an eye out for this one!
March 22, 2022
Beautiful and heartbreaking, When Other People Saw Us They Saw The Dead is one of those rare anthologies without a single subpar story. From start to finish I was fully immersed in the collection’s world of darkness, lost loves, and ghosts. A much-needed collection of diverse stories from BIPOC.
November 23, 2025
This collection from Haunt Publishing was absolutely outstanding! With educated, wise prose and a variety of imaginative voices, each story was spellbinding and heartbreaking. While originally marketed as horror, these tales are decidedly not chilling or nail-biting. Most are indeed haunted but by the more human variety, filled with ghosts of regret, discrimination and despair rather than the supernatural. Nevertheless, each contributor added to an outstanding literary tapestry. Highly recommended.
November 22, 2022
A spooky anthology from Haunt Publishing!
I participated in the Kickstarter last year I believe? I don’t know anymore. What is time? There is one more book I am waiting for! But this one I could finally read now that it was Halloween/Spooktober. I just love saving scary books for this season.
In this anthology featuring 24 stories we find out about true hauntings. From real hauntings and spooky things that go bump in the night to things in the forest to murder to retellings of stories (I spy a Blue Beard one) but also to hauntings like the girl who lost her sister and still feels her with her. She isn’t able to go on with her life. There were some very dark stories in there. Some very unsettling. But also some that were a bit easier and didn’t scare me that much. Some were just plain weird (that girl who heard a beat in her freaking walls, girl what?). But in overall I did enjoy most of the stories and I am so glad I got the chance to read this book!
I have to say that the first half of the book’s stories were great and I found quite some gems there. But in the later half? Less and less was to my appeal (some even bored me) not to mention that several there just ended. Like, boom. Story over and I would be like, wait? Did I miss something? Did something happen? Oh no, this is really the end. There were a few that I did like, but in comparison to the strong first half…
Here are my favourites: Sight, Clockwork, Candlemaker’s Daughter, For Evermore.
Also I would have liked to see the trigger warnings at the stories themselves as well (like under the title). It is great that there is a whole chapter for that, but it was just a bit too much to keep having to go to content page > search for the right page and in the mean time not click anything on the bottom or I would lose where I was with the story > remember the trigger warnings > read or not read. But again, I was still happy with that as I could skip the story featuring sexual assault and thread carefully in the one with the suicide.
All in all, I am very happy with this read! Some really spooked me. I loved the diversity. More colour in spooky stories go! Bring it! I would recommend it!
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
I participated in the Kickstarter last year I believe? I don’t know anymore. What is time? There is one more book I am waiting for! But this one I could finally read now that it was Halloween/Spooktober. I just love saving scary books for this season.
In this anthology featuring 24 stories we find out about true hauntings. From real hauntings and spooky things that go bump in the night to things in the forest to murder to retellings of stories (I spy a Blue Beard one) but also to hauntings like the girl who lost her sister and still feels her with her. She isn’t able to go on with her life. There were some very dark stories in there. Some very unsettling. But also some that were a bit easier and didn’t scare me that much. Some were just plain weird (that girl who heard a beat in her freaking walls, girl what?). But in overall I did enjoy most of the stories and I am so glad I got the chance to read this book!
I have to say that the first half of the book’s stories were great and I found quite some gems there. But in the later half? Less and less was to my appeal (some even bored me) not to mention that several there just ended. Like, boom. Story over and I would be like, wait? Did I miss something? Did something happen? Oh no, this is really the end. There were a few that I did like, but in comparison to the strong first half…
Here are my favourites: Sight, Clockwork, Candlemaker’s Daughter, For Evermore.
Also I would have liked to see the trigger warnings at the stories themselves as well (like under the title). It is great that there is a whole chapter for that, but it was just a bit too much to keep having to go to content page > search for the right page and in the mean time not click anything on the bottom or I would lose where I was with the story > remember the trigger warnings > read or not read. But again, I was still happy with that as I could skip the story featuring sexual assault and thread carefully in the one with the suicide.
All in all, I am very happy with this read! Some really spooked me. I loved the diversity. More colour in spooky stories go! Bring it! I would recommend it!
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
July 5, 2022
Like any anthology, this was a mixed reading experience but the book overall is a great reading experience. The stories are short and pithy and the way the collection has been put together creates a great flow. There's a really wide range of tales for all tastes in the Gothic and ghostly and although some appealed more and others less, the whole book was enjoyable. The real stand out for me was Aliya Chaudry's 'The Ghost of Creek Hill' (incidentally the story from which the title of the anthology is taken). This was an absolutely stunning piece of writing which played with Gothic concepts of haunting. Gorgeous!
July 24, 2022
This collection was hit and miss for me. Some stories were engrossing and haunting, five-stars, while others felt scattered or unfinished. The stories that were good were great, though, and I know I'll hang onto this and probably revisit it.
June 5, 2025
I discovered this book randomly and I'm happy I did! This is an incredible shorty story anthology--the authors come from diverse backgrounds and write diverse stories that range in length, tone, and topic. I appreciated that this anthology represented diversity on the page and off it--some of these stories directly address systematic oppression and violence but others do not. Authors are allowed to show up and take up whatever spooky space they want to!
The stories ranged in length from two pages to twenty, so you get a great mix of pithy bites and fully developed horror. The tone also ranges from darkly funny, grieving, eerie, and downright scary. I do not scare easily and "The Mountain Air" is the scariest thing I've read in a long time! The first story "Acheron's Lesson" deals with deep grief and it drew me in immediately--I knew I had made a good choice with this anthology!
A few stories in the middle fell short for me which lowered the tension the anthology was creating. Some more time spent in the editing phase would have been helpful.
This collection will have something in it for every horror fan out there. I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy!
Otherwise,
The stories ranged in length from two pages to twenty, so you get a great mix of pithy bites and fully developed horror. The tone also ranges from darkly funny, grieving, eerie, and downright scary. I do not scare easily and "The Mountain Air" is the scariest thing I've read in a long time! The first story "Acheron's Lesson" deals with deep grief and it drew me in immediately--I knew I had made a good choice with this anthology!
A few stories in the middle fell short for me which lowered the tension the anthology was creating. Some more time spent in the editing phase would have been helpful.
This collection will have something in it for every horror fan out there. I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy!
Otherwise,
October 28, 2022
This is the second title I receive from one of my favourite publishers—Haunt Publishing—in exchange for an honest review, and I was so excited for the spooky season because of it! When Other People Saw Us, They Saw the Dead is a horror anthology by BIPOC writers, showcasing their best works—dark, unsettling and eerie short stories for the cold nights of autumn and winter.
Besides the typical Halloween-y tone and the general themes of Gothic, macabre, folklore and fantasy, these short stories also explore grief, gentrification, white supremacy and colonisation. All very important topics that unfortunately don’t find widespread exploration in literature. Representation matters, on the page and behind the page, so this is exactly what you will find in this collection.
Creating these stories so dark and spooky definitely made the writers’ task all the more difficult, as they had to build the proper atmosphere, on top of everything else. I can certainly tell that they all succeeded, so this is an amazing book to get haunted by and get lost into during the spooky season.
Besides the typical Halloween-y tone and the general themes of Gothic, macabre, folklore and fantasy, these short stories also explore grief, gentrification, white supremacy and colonisation. All very important topics that unfortunately don’t find widespread exploration in literature. Representation matters, on the page and behind the page, so this is exactly what you will find in this collection.
Creating these stories so dark and spooky definitely made the writers’ task all the more difficult, as they had to build the proper atmosphere, on top of everything else. I can certainly tell that they all succeeded, so this is an amazing book to get haunted by and get lost into during the spooky season.
September 18, 2022
An anthology of ghost stories by people of colour. Only two of which I didn't care for, so many which I would have loved more of. Ranging from the creepy to the comforting. Already decided to lend it to a friend.
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about the authors:
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June 1, 2022
It's always hard to judge an anthology as a whole, but I feel the stories I enjoyed outweighed the ones I don't really remember. No actual 'bad' stories for me in this either, which was a plus.
July 5, 2022
Some stories were amazing! Some were okay, but every one of them were entertaining and creative!
dnf
December 8, 2022Read the first couple stories, I’m putting a pin in it until next year
August 16, 2025
A good collection of different gothic tales, some poignant and powerful stuff amongst them.
March 24, 2023
Obviously I'm the dissenting voice here, but this book is hard to get through. I was so excited to read it-spooky stories? Love em! Written entirely by BIPOC authors? Amazing!
I think there's readers who feel that story>writing, and those who feel the opposite, and I'm of the latter camp (not the better camp, just different priorities). The writing in this is...bad. I thought it was going to be just one or two of the stories, but I kept reading and it became obvious that the editor has a fondness for an overwrought style, where the author frequently uses words that they unfortunately don't know the meaning of. Ultimately, it was too distracting for me to really sink into the stories.
I gave it three stars for creativity and for the concept of the book. I wish I liked this more.
I think there's readers who feel that story>writing, and those who feel the opposite, and I'm of the latter camp (not the better camp, just different priorities). The writing in this is...bad. I thought it was going to be just one or two of the stories, but I kept reading and it became obvious that the editor has a fondness for an overwrought style, where the author frequently uses words that they unfortunately don't know the meaning of. Ultimately, it was too distracting for me to really sink into the stories.
I gave it three stars for creativity and for the concept of the book. I wish I liked this more.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews