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Muckross Abbey and Other Stories
From the PEN/Faulkner award winning pioneer of "ironic gothic" (Washington Post) comes a wry and spooky set of ghost stories, replete with original illustrations.
Since her acclaimed novel A Carnivore's Inquiry, Sabina Murray has been celebrated for her mastery of the gothic. Now in Muckross Abbey and Other Stories, she returns to the genre, bringing readers to haunted sites from a West Australian convent school to the moors of England to the shores of Cape Cod in ten strange tales that are layered, meta, and unforgettable.
A twisted recasting of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, an actor who dies for his art only to haunt his mother's house, the titular "Muckross Abbey," an Irish chieftain burial site cursed by the specter of a flesh eating groom-- in this collection Murray gives us painters, writers, historians, and nuns all confronting the otherworldly in fantastically creepy ways. With notes of Wharton and James, Stoker and Shelley, now drawn into the present, these macabre stories are sure to captivate and chill.
Since her acclaimed novel A Carnivore's Inquiry, Sabina Murray has been celebrated for her mastery of the gothic. Now in Muckross Abbey and Other Stories, she returns to the genre, bringing readers to haunted sites from a West Australian convent school to the moors of England to the shores of Cape Cod in ten strange tales that are layered, meta, and unforgettable.
A twisted recasting of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, an actor who dies for his art only to haunt his mother's house, the titular "Muckross Abbey," an Irish chieftain burial site cursed by the specter of a flesh eating groom-- in this collection Murray gives us painters, writers, historians, and nuns all confronting the otherworldly in fantastically creepy ways. With notes of Wharton and James, Stoker and Shelley, now drawn into the present, these macabre stories are sure to captivate and chill.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 21, 2023
8 people are currently reading
4786 people want to read
About the author
Sabina Murray
17 books83 followersSabina Murray was born in 1968 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is of mixed parentage—her mother a Filipina from Manila, her father a former Jesuit scholastic turned anthropologist from Boston. Her parents met in Washington DC, where both were pursuing graduate degrees. At the age of two she moved to Perth with her family, when her father accepted a position at the University of Western Australia. In 1980 the family moved again, this time to Manila, to be closer to her mother’s family. Although Sabina Murray is an American citizen, she did not live again in the United States until she attended college. She feels that she moves easily through the various cultures that have forged her own identity: Australian, Filipino, and American. She now lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family, where she directs, and teaches in, the Creative Writing Program at Umass.
In 1989, Murray’s novel, Slow Burn, set in the decadent Manila of the mid-eighties, was accepted for publication, when Murray was twenty years old. Later, she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she started work on The Caprices, a short story collection that explores the Pacific Campaign of WWII. In 1999, Murray left Texas for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she had a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. In January, 2002, Murray published The Caprices, which won the PEN Faulkner Award.
Murray’s next novel, A Carnivore’s Inquiry, follows Katherine Shea, a woman of strange appetites, as she moves from man to man ruminating on the nature of cannibalism in western history, literature and art. The book is a dark comedy that is concerned with power and hunger. Forgery is her most recent book, and this looks at authenticity by following Rupert Brigg, who is exploring art and escaping grief in Greece in the early sixties. Both novels were Chicago Tribune Best Books.
Her most recent book, Tales of The New World, a collection of short stories with an interest in explorers, was released by Grove/Black Cat in November, 2011. She is hard at work on a novel that looks at the friendship between the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement and the artist Herbert Ward.
Murray is also a screenwriter and wrote the script for the film Beautiful Country, released in 2005. Beautiful Country follows the story of Binh, a young Amerasian man who comes to the U.S. from Vietnam in search of the father he never knew. Terrence Malick commissioned Murray to write the screenplay.
Murray has been a Michener Fellow at UT Austin, a Bunting fellow at Radcliffe, a Guggenheim Fellow, and has received the PEN/Faulkner Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, a Umass Research and Creativity Award, and a Fred Brown Award for The Novel from the University of Pittsburgh. Beautiful Country was nominated for a Golden Bear and the screenplay was nominated for an Amanda Award (the Norwegian Oscars!) and an Independent Spirit Award.
In 1989, Murray’s novel, Slow Burn, set in the decadent Manila of the mid-eighties, was accepted for publication, when Murray was twenty years old. Later, she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she started work on The Caprices, a short story collection that explores the Pacific Campaign of WWII. In 1999, Murray left Texas for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she had a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. In January, 2002, Murray published The Caprices, which won the PEN Faulkner Award.
Murray’s next novel, A Carnivore’s Inquiry, follows Katherine Shea, a woman of strange appetites, as she moves from man to man ruminating on the nature of cannibalism in western history, literature and art. The book is a dark comedy that is concerned with power and hunger. Forgery is her most recent book, and this looks at authenticity by following Rupert Brigg, who is exploring art and escaping grief in Greece in the early sixties. Both novels were Chicago Tribune Best Books.
Her most recent book, Tales of The New World, a collection of short stories with an interest in explorers, was released by Grove/Black Cat in November, 2011. She is hard at work on a novel that looks at the friendship between the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement and the artist Herbert Ward.
Murray is also a screenwriter and wrote the script for the film Beautiful Country, released in 2005. Beautiful Country follows the story of Binh, a young Amerasian man who comes to the U.S. from Vietnam in search of the father he never knew. Terrence Malick commissioned Murray to write the screenplay.
Murray has been a Michener Fellow at UT Austin, a Bunting fellow at Radcliffe, a Guggenheim Fellow, and has received the PEN/Faulkner Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, a Umass Research and Creativity Award, and a Fred Brown Award for The Novel from the University of Pittsburgh. Beautiful Country was nominated for a Golden Bear and the screenplay was nominated for an Amanda Award (the Norwegian Oscars!) and an Independent Spirit Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
October 15, 2022
What a treat. Real, honest to goodness, creepy, spine tingling ghost stories. These days so many "ghost" stories seem to be filled with too many twists and turns or too much blood and gore. The Muckross Abbey collection are simply ghost stories - well told, beautifully crafted, neither too long nor too short. I loved them. One of the really great things about a good ghost story is that you're never sure who is telling it and it caught me out a couple of times.
However I am a total scaredy cat and I actually slept with the light on last night. My house is old and it creaks despite there only being me in it. People have said there's a poltergeist living in one of my bookshelves but he/she only seems to get upset when a particularly bad book gets put there.
But back to this excellent collection of short stories. If you like creepy then you'll love these. Just read them during the day, preferably in bright sunlight.
I received this ARC from Netgalley and am writing this review voluntarily.
However I am a total scaredy cat and I actually slept with the light on last night. My house is old and it creaks despite there only being me in it. People have said there's a poltergeist living in one of my bookshelves but he/she only seems to get upset when a particularly bad book gets put there.
But back to this excellent collection of short stories. If you like creepy then you'll love these. Just read them during the day, preferably in bright sunlight.
I received this ARC from Netgalley and am writing this review voluntarily.
April 19, 2023
This collection of ten stories focuses on the eerie, the off center, that gothic feeling, and, of course, ghosts. The settings vary from English moors to an Irish Abbey to an English girls’ school to a vacation villa on the Mediterranean. There are infidelities answered from both sides of the grave.
The stories are low key, rolling out the tension slowly. Even in the couple of cases where I felt the end coming, that didn’t spoil my enjoyment. In at least two cases, I was left wanting to know more…what happened next beyond the the written ending. I have enjoyed ghost stories for years and this book met my needs very well as I think it will for others who enjoy this genre. It doesn’t slip into horror but maintains that edginess of fright one feels when dealing with the unknown in our “real” world on a foggy night full of nameless shapes and sounds. Recommended to ghost story readers and others who would like to try the genre. These are well done stories.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
The stories are low key, rolling out the tension slowly. Even in the couple of cases where I felt the end coming, that didn’t spoil my enjoyment. In at least two cases, I was left wanting to know more…what happened next beyond the the written ending. I have enjoyed ghost stories for years and this book met my needs very well as I think it will for others who enjoy this genre. It doesn’t slip into horror but maintains that edginess of fright one feels when dealing with the unknown in our “real” world on a foggy night full of nameless shapes and sounds. Recommended to ghost story readers and others who would like to try the genre. These are well done stories.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
October 27, 2023
"Muckross Abbey and Other Stories" is a collection of ten ghostly tales by Massachussets-based author Sabina Murray, hailed by The Washington Post as a purveyor of “ironic Gothic”.
In this volume, the influence of the classic English ghost story comes to the fore. “Harm”, one of the longer pieces here, speaks of the ghost of an American playwright who returns to haunt an Irish artist retreat house where she died. In its final paragraphs, which serve as an epilogue of sorts, the story turns all “meta”, with one of the minor characters ruminating on the nature of ghosts and their tales:
It is an interpretation of “the ghost” which would have been familiar to the classic writers mentioned in the book’s blurb – “Wharton and James, Stoker and Shelley”. In fact, the spectres that haunt Murray’s collection are largely unquiet spirits, whether jealous ghosts returning to seek revenge or simply bodies “buried in the wrong place” coming back to complete unfinished business or simply to bother the living. They also behave in just the way we would expect them to: walking through walls, appearing as vague mists in doorways and mirrors, re-enacting their final moments. It is perhaps to reinforce this “familiarity” that, with a few exceptions, Murray places her stories in the “Old World”: the settings include desolate, foggy Dartmoor (“The Long Story”), rural Oxfordshire (“The Third Boy”) and Ireland (“Muckross Abbey” and the above-mentioned “Harm”).
So what does Murray bring to these stories which goes beyond “pastiche”? First of all, the narratives largely take place in the “here and now”, and feature contemporary individuals with contemporary concerns, who take selfies on their smartphones and watch Netflix on their tvs. This creates an intriguing contrast between a subject-matter based on “tradition”, and the modern-day settings. Secondly, there is, in many of the pieces, a sense of playing around with history of the genre, and “knowing” (ironic?) references to the tropes of the Gothic. For instance, “Remote Control” starts with a honeymooning couple debating whether a movie quote about Monte Carlo is taken from To Catch a Thief or from Rebecca. It is, indeed, from Rebecca and the rest of the story is, actually, a riff on Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel. “Apartment 4D” takes place in a modern-day drab apartment building, but is framed as a tale told around the fire – surprise, surprise – one Christmas Eve.
But, ultimately, the best reason for reading this collection is that the stories are all deliciously creepy, with some of them being genuinely unsettling. My favourites include “Apartment 4D”, which has some shocking twists, and the two related stories, both featuring the same nuns’ school, “The Dead Children” (what an ending!) and “The Flowers, the Birds, the Trees”. Highly recommended.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
In this volume, the influence of the classic English ghost story comes to the fore. “Harm”, one of the longer pieces here, speaks of the ghost of an American playwright who returns to haunt an Irish artist retreat house where she died. In its final paragraphs, which serve as an epilogue of sorts, the story turns all “meta”, with one of the minor characters ruminating on the nature of ghosts and their tales:
“But in the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it? In another twenty years, we’ll all have forgotten who she was. She’ll just be that lady buried in the wrong place, another ghost wandering about, desperate for someone to supply the narrative"
“I say it had to be love,” said Jennifer... and it was moving, this impossible love of a dead woman, a dead love, a tale of few concrete details, except for its irrepressible woe.
It is an interpretation of “the ghost” which would have been familiar to the classic writers mentioned in the book’s blurb – “Wharton and James, Stoker and Shelley”. In fact, the spectres that haunt Murray’s collection are largely unquiet spirits, whether jealous ghosts returning to seek revenge or simply bodies “buried in the wrong place” coming back to complete unfinished business or simply to bother the living. They also behave in just the way we would expect them to: walking through walls, appearing as vague mists in doorways and mirrors, re-enacting their final moments. It is perhaps to reinforce this “familiarity” that, with a few exceptions, Murray places her stories in the “Old World”: the settings include desolate, foggy Dartmoor (“The Long Story”), rural Oxfordshire (“The Third Boy”) and Ireland (“Muckross Abbey” and the above-mentioned “Harm”).
So what does Murray bring to these stories which goes beyond “pastiche”? First of all, the narratives largely take place in the “here and now”, and feature contemporary individuals with contemporary concerns, who take selfies on their smartphones and watch Netflix on their tvs. This creates an intriguing contrast between a subject-matter based on “tradition”, and the modern-day settings. Secondly, there is, in many of the pieces, a sense of playing around with history of the genre, and “knowing” (ironic?) references to the tropes of the Gothic. For instance, “Remote Control” starts with a honeymooning couple debating whether a movie quote about Monte Carlo is taken from To Catch a Thief or from Rebecca. It is, indeed, from Rebecca and the rest of the story is, actually, a riff on Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel. “Apartment 4D” takes place in a modern-day drab apartment building, but is framed as a tale told around the fire – surprise, surprise – one Christmas Eve.
But, ultimately, the best reason for reading this collection is that the stories are all deliciously creepy, with some of them being genuinely unsettling. My favourites include “Apartment 4D”, which has some shocking twists, and the two related stories, both featuring the same nuns’ school, “The Dead Children” (what an ending!) and “The Flowers, the Birds, the Trees”. Highly recommended.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
August 19, 2022
Taking a page out of the old masters’ books, this collection is as haunting and atmospheric in ambiance and as dense in writing style as something M.R. James or someone like that might have written, but (and this is a significant Kardashian-size but) this collection is infinitely more readable.
This reader, at least, gets put to sleep by a lot of old timey genre fiction, these stories were lively enough to stay awake to. Not so much slow as slow-simmering, tale after tale of ghostly goings on, this collection is a perfectly fun way to spend a dark evening or two, especially for genre fans. Specifically, genre fans who like their frights quiet, subtly eerie, and literary.
The only thing here is I’d recommend this collection for dipping in and out instead of reading straight through as I did. The latter method makes some of them appear too similar, blends them together in a way, one ghost after another. But taken individually, they’d likely shine more in their own individual ways.
Neo Gothic through and through, in the best creaky stairs and shadowy corners and all that haunting spookiness sort of thing.
Overall, a nice read. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
This reader, at least, gets put to sleep by a lot of old timey genre fiction, these stories were lively enough to stay awake to. Not so much slow as slow-simmering, tale after tale of ghostly goings on, this collection is a perfectly fun way to spend a dark evening or two, especially for genre fans. Specifically, genre fans who like their frights quiet, subtly eerie, and literary.
The only thing here is I’d recommend this collection for dipping in and out instead of reading straight through as I did. The latter method makes some of them appear too similar, blends them together in a way, one ghost after another. But taken individually, they’d likely shine more in their own individual ways.
Neo Gothic through and through, in the best creaky stairs and shadowy corners and all that haunting spookiness sort of thing.
Overall, a nice read. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
January 22, 2023
It's often quite hard to properly explain a collection of short stories because of the variety of content and quality which can exist between each story. Not so much in this case. Muckross Abbey felt like a collection of old fashion English horror stories, only with American main characters. There was a familiarity to each of them (in fact I felt as though I had read "The Flower, the Birds, the Trees" somewhere before) and no new surprises.
While that may be the case Murray's writing was clear and accessible. She can build intriguing characters. A few of the stories might have fared better having being longer stories and been given the chance for her to explore the characters and their relationships.
Nothing stood out to me either good or bad and I doubt I will remember much later but for the nagging sense of trying to figure out why that story was so familiar to me.
I received this arc from Netgalley but the opinion is all mine.
While that may be the case Murray's writing was clear and accessible. She can build intriguing characters. A few of the stories might have fared better having being longer stories and been given the chance for her to explore the characters and their relationships.
Nothing stood out to me either good or bad and I doubt I will remember much later but for the nagging sense of trying to figure out why that story was so familiar to me.
I received this arc from Netgalley but the opinion is all mine.
November 4, 2024
4.5/5 ✨ Such a good read perfect for halloween 🦇🎃
July 4, 2023
I really like all the stories in this collection.
February 24, 2024
The ghosts haunting this anthology are real, expressive, and emotional. Although fictional, each story is infused with such a solid voice, presence, and authenticity that it’s easy to forget the genre. I devoured each tale, eagerly awaiting the supernatural twist. The author has gotten better and better over the years; this anthology is my favorite of hers thus far. Highly recommended! 👻💀
April 3, 2024
Review of audio on Library Journal website: https://www.libraryjournal.com/review...
April 4, 2023
3.75 stars because for a short story collection the majority of included pieces should be excellent and in this curation, a few of the stories were stunning and with a unique twist and too many weren’t. However, I love how hi-brow this author is—classic art, philosophy, literature, theater and music embedded into each story in tasteful combinations all while luring her readers into mysterious circumstances swirling with loss and pain.
I appreciated the elegant dialogue exchanged between unhappy artistic and/or academic couples The dialogue was analytical, thoughtful, expansive and borders on unrealistic or rare outside this collection of Gothic short stories. It kind of reminded me of a show I used to watch when I was way too young to watch it, “Thirtysomething” and I couldn’t wait to grow up and be married and process life with a partner only to discover that those kind of conversations that do happen, happen very infrequently. This leaves me respectfully nodding at the aspirational aspect Murray holds her characters, especially the overeducated ones, to.
The author’s sense of liminal spaces is gorgeous and filmic in how she draws readers into mists, bogs, lakes, convents, gardens and abandoned haunted homes. One book not referenced but I felt permeates through these mini narratives is “The Secret Garden” as there was an unearthing of the beauty life offers even as it’s fleeting or unappreciated by people gifted with privilege and life itself. However, the liminal spaces employed by Murray began to become predictable and would appear as glints and glimmers in other stories throughout the selection. On the positive side, a reader can discern a writer’s toolkit which is why some readers enjoy series reading or stay with an author’s collected works. But a short story collection should offer the best array of a writer’s craft and tools and not struggle to not be a novel which for me this work did. Examples of presenting an array of craft and tools can be found in works by: Carmen Maria Machado, Helen Oyeyemi, and Mariana Enriquez.
This collection is plagued by the unbalanced power dynamics between older husbands and younger wives picked before ripening into womanhood and who’d likely choose otherwise had they waited until further bloom to marry. Male characters struggle with traditional male tropes—widowed millionaire, failed professor, cheating artist, frustrated playwright, absent professional fathers— abound in these stories, though there are a couple of male characters who amend male molds but these characters mostly hang around the periphery. The woman border on mad, depressed, child-free, cold mothers, bratty bullying girls and the like. The women sort of linger between ball and chain trophy wife or retreating to a psychological attic where they can linger quietly in madness and sadness.
Motherless children are raised or guided by surrogates or spirits and families live quietly with the ghosts of their deceased children. When they don���t live in this manner they ship their children off to schools and visits shared in these works are highly compartmentalized both physically and psychologically.
I wasn’t into the animal harm—it just doesn’t work or deliver for me. After a bit I was frustrated with the lack of story for the shadowy male figure who suggests death—he never develops nor does the archetypal woman in the light gown an effigy who distracts drivers and disappears these figures seem to diminish the sophistication of characters, lives and conflicts by their mere presence.
Murray definitely understands the human psyche and heart and why people end up the way they might end up though she also points to the simultaneous existence of the other lives people would choose and how that too can exist in real time.
What bothered me was that most of the stories worked together and some didn’t and I questioned why they were there. This collection wants to be a novel even a short one. I usually don’t grab for a gothic work but now I’m further interested because I was engrossed and found myself jumping when disturbed, looking up images and mentioned works and philosophers I didn’t fully know. In this way the work for the most part is expansive however a short story collection seems to cheat the reader of this richness and growth.
Still happy I enjoyed this—it reminds me a little of Milan Kundera’s work. I’ll definitely give the author an additional shot and read a novel length work. Definitely a hidden gem unearthed here. Murray is quite an author and holds up important works within Classics that many people in the future will never know or appreciate, but by memorizing them even while scaring people a little will hopefully create space in collective memory for future scholars and influencers to celebrate and explore.
I appreciated the elegant dialogue exchanged between unhappy artistic and/or academic couples The dialogue was analytical, thoughtful, expansive and borders on unrealistic or rare outside this collection of Gothic short stories. It kind of reminded me of a show I used to watch when I was way too young to watch it, “Thirtysomething” and I couldn’t wait to grow up and be married and process life with a partner only to discover that those kind of conversations that do happen, happen very infrequently. This leaves me respectfully nodding at the aspirational aspect Murray holds her characters, especially the overeducated ones, to.
The author’s sense of liminal spaces is gorgeous and filmic in how she draws readers into mists, bogs, lakes, convents, gardens and abandoned haunted homes. One book not referenced but I felt permeates through these mini narratives is “The Secret Garden” as there was an unearthing of the beauty life offers even as it’s fleeting or unappreciated by people gifted with privilege and life itself. However, the liminal spaces employed by Murray began to become predictable and would appear as glints and glimmers in other stories throughout the selection. On the positive side, a reader can discern a writer’s toolkit which is why some readers enjoy series reading or stay with an author’s collected works. But a short story collection should offer the best array of a writer’s craft and tools and not struggle to not be a novel which for me this work did. Examples of presenting an array of craft and tools can be found in works by: Carmen Maria Machado, Helen Oyeyemi, and Mariana Enriquez.
This collection is plagued by the unbalanced power dynamics between older husbands and younger wives picked before ripening into womanhood and who’d likely choose otherwise had they waited until further bloom to marry. Male characters struggle with traditional male tropes—widowed millionaire, failed professor, cheating artist, frustrated playwright, absent professional fathers— abound in these stories, though there are a couple of male characters who amend male molds but these characters mostly hang around the periphery. The woman border on mad, depressed, child-free, cold mothers, bratty bullying girls and the like. The women sort of linger between ball and chain trophy wife or retreating to a psychological attic where they can linger quietly in madness and sadness.
Motherless children are raised or guided by surrogates or spirits and families live quietly with the ghosts of their deceased children. When they don���t live in this manner they ship their children off to schools and visits shared in these works are highly compartmentalized both physically and psychologically.
I wasn’t into the animal harm—it just doesn’t work or deliver for me. After a bit I was frustrated with the lack of story for the shadowy male figure who suggests death—he never develops nor does the archetypal woman in the light gown an effigy who distracts drivers and disappears these figures seem to diminish the sophistication of characters, lives and conflicts by their mere presence.
Murray definitely understands the human psyche and heart and why people end up the way they might end up though she also points to the simultaneous existence of the other lives people would choose and how that too can exist in real time.
What bothered me was that most of the stories worked together and some didn’t and I questioned why they were there. This collection wants to be a novel even a short one. I usually don’t grab for a gothic work but now I’m further interested because I was engrossed and found myself jumping when disturbed, looking up images and mentioned works and philosophers I didn’t fully know. In this way the work for the most part is expansive however a short story collection seems to cheat the reader of this richness and growth.
Still happy I enjoyed this—it reminds me a little of Milan Kundera’s work. I’ll definitely give the author an additional shot and read a novel length work. Definitely a hidden gem unearthed here. Murray is quite an author and holds up important works within Classics that many people in the future will never know or appreciate, but by memorizing them even while scaring people a little will hopefully create space in collective memory for future scholars and influencers to celebrate and explore.
January 6, 2023
I received a copy of this book for free in a Goodreads giveaway.
This is a collection of ghost stories, for lack of a better term, but they're thankfully not scary to the point of horror, just kind of creepy. The author does a good job setting up the atmosphere and characters in each story. The characters felt distinct and not generic, and even with the various settings, there's a consistent atmosphere of mystery across these stories but without being too creepy. I enjoyed the gradual reveal of the ghost-like element in each one, the supernatural forces that become more present as each story goes on, but without overwhelming the story or beating you over the head with them. I suppose it's unavoidable with these ghost stories where nothing can be fully explained, but it did feel like a lot of them ended abruptly, with the ghost or spirit or whatever entity fully showing itself, and then the story ending without really a resolution as to what happened to the human characters. But I enjoyed the experience of reading these.
This is a collection of ghost stories, for lack of a better term, but they're thankfully not scary to the point of horror, just kind of creepy. The author does a good job setting up the atmosphere and characters in each story. The characters felt distinct and not generic, and even with the various settings, there's a consistent atmosphere of mystery across these stories but without being too creepy. I enjoyed the gradual reveal of the ghost-like element in each one, the supernatural forces that become more present as each story goes on, but without overwhelming the story or beating you over the head with them. I suppose it's unavoidable with these ghost stories where nothing can be fully explained, but it did feel like a lot of them ended abruptly, with the ghost or spirit or whatever entity fully showing itself, and then the story ending without really a resolution as to what happened to the human characters. But I enjoyed the experience of reading these.
September 8, 2022
I didn't know what I was expecting going in, but instead of a fully done ghost stories handfed to you, this is overall more of a atmospheric gothic supernatural reads perfect for entering the autumn season. Curl up under your blanket and hear the heavy rain pouring outside with thunders, open this book and read it in peace.
It's not scary at all. Eerie chill perhaps would fit better. The story always cut abruptly in the middle without clear conclusion (something to note if you NEED to understand what's going on in a story, but I personally don't mind it)
but I suppose that's exactly how ghost stories work. You tell a story, and stops in the middle, having no clear answer as to what happens next or if any of it is true. You just drop it and shrugs, letting the listener make what they believe out of it and pour yourself a hot coffee. That's how this book is beat read.
It's not scary at all. Eerie chill perhaps would fit better. The story always cut abruptly in the middle without clear conclusion (something to note if you NEED to understand what's going on in a story, but I personally don't mind it)
but I suppose that's exactly how ghost stories work. You tell a story, and stops in the middle, having no clear answer as to what happens next or if any of it is true. You just drop it and shrugs, letting the listener make what they believe out of it and pour yourself a hot coffee. That's how this book is beat read.
May 4, 2023
This is a great gothic collection. My favorite aspect is that all the stories here feel like they were written for this collection. They all share a similar tone and mood and register, we see similar images show up, similar sorts of characters populate them. It's easy to imagine that they're all part of the same bigger story and that all the characters will meet each other in just the next chapter. Often a short story collection can come off feeling a bit uneven and I really enjoyed that sense of stability that the collection carries through.
The actual stories are pretty uniformly good also. Creepy without being over the top, never veering into gory but often just slightly unsettling. The paranormal aspects are worked into the real-life parts of the story really seamlessly, and the characters feel believable and alive.
The actual stories are pretty uniformly good also. Creepy without being over the top, never veering into gory but often just slightly unsettling. The paranormal aspects are worked into the real-life parts of the story really seamlessly, and the characters feel believable and alive.
February 5, 2024
[This book was provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review]
4 stars
An engaging and highly intertextual collection of gothic stories. All of the stories seem to either be influenced by or loving homages to other texts (Rebecca, Dubliners, etc.). My favorites are “Muckross Abbey,” “Apartment 4D,” and “Vanishing Point.” I like “The Flowers, The Birds, The Trees” as an ending point to the collection, suggesting the powerful nature of friendship—sometimes to frightening degrees. The strongest stories have satisfying endings and a wonderful sense of inevitability. The weaker ones tend to struggle to stick the landing, or to connect the author’s point with the actual events of the story.
4 stars
An engaging and highly intertextual collection of gothic stories. All of the stories seem to either be influenced by or loving homages to other texts (Rebecca, Dubliners, etc.). My favorites are “Muckross Abbey,” “Apartment 4D,” and “Vanishing Point.” I like “The Flowers, The Birds, The Trees” as an ending point to the collection, suggesting the powerful nature of friendship—sometimes to frightening degrees. The strongest stories have satisfying endings and a wonderful sense of inevitability. The weaker ones tend to struggle to stick the landing, or to connect the author’s point with the actual events of the story.
July 3, 2023
I enjoyed this collection of stories that straddled the line between spooky and literary well enough. There's an element of sameness here, as most stories (all?) deal with people being haunted by a figure just outside the realm of perception, which made them all a little predictable to me. But of course, the reasons for the hauntings are varied, so there's that.
Murray has a love for gothic settings, which often means somewhere north of London, though in a pinch, there are spots in New England and elsewhere that work just as well for her. The mood of creepiness is fun here, I guess, even if for me it never quite accelerated to bone chilling.
Murray has a love for gothic settings, which often means somewhere north of London, though in a pinch, there are spots in New England and elsewhere that work just as well for her. The mood of creepiness is fun here, I guess, even if for me it never quite accelerated to bone chilling.
August 18, 2022
This is a spooky wreath of stories that capitalize on their modern gothic remit beautifully. The stories interlink like a well-produced album that flow seamlessly one into the next, echoing themes, tensions, and characters across the slim volume. Though I put the book down between stories and still thoroughly enjoyed it, it would reward the reader who can get through the ten stories in one sitting. Perfect for a stormy evening.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 15, 2023
Quite interesting stories hobbled by inconsistent plotting -- I felt that most of them went on too long, and every single one of them could have done with a more straightforward ending. I really felt they all fell flat towards the end.
Still, all in all a nice collection that I might even be tempted to re-read eventually.
Still, all in all a nice collection that I might even be tempted to re-read eventually.
April 7, 2023
A fascinating anthology of ghost stories and other type of horror or gothic. They're all well done, creepy and they slowly bring you to face the most frightening part.
The author is an excellent storyteller and almost all the story are very good.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
The author is an excellent storyteller and almost all the story are very good.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
April 10, 2023
Ooooo, yes. Bite-sized gothic, ghostly horror for your tasting pleasure (or at least for mine). I loved the settings and that the author allowed my imagination to do the worst with just enough description given to let my own mental paintbrush take it from there. Super fun.
August 4, 2023
This book was recommended by The Denver Gazette. Most of the stories were okay although nothing particularly striking. Many felt to be imitations of Saki and du Maurier, and none were particularly surprising or suspenseful.
It got me through a rainy afternoon.
It got me through a rainy afternoon.
November 9, 2023
The first thought that came to mind when reading these stories was that this book is for adults what "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" is for kids. Memorable. Creepy stories with great endings. I absolutely loved this collection and will definitely be rereading in the future.
January 28, 2023
This one had me waking up in the middle of the night to think about. Apartment 4D was my favorite and gave me chills. Great read!
April 1, 2023
I read a review in the paper of this collection titled “Chilling Discoveries and Macabre Delights.” No, no it wasn’t. Do not recommend.
April 30, 2023
3.5* I quite enjoyed these essentially old-fashioned ghost-stories - think of yarns by the likes of M R James but situated in a more contemporary setting.
May 9, 2023
I really enjoyed this collection of old fashioned, atmosphere-heavy ghost stories.
July 25, 2023
Kinda formulaic but delivers what it sets out to, good lunch break book
September 16, 2023
Wonderfully creepy, beautifully written stories with a rare timeless feel.
December 25, 2023
bordering between 2.5 and 3. Short stories all based in supernatural/ghosts. Some well written some just okay for me. Good vacation read.
January 13, 2024
Very sad and creepy ghost stories (most of them), which is what they should be
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