My Heart Is Full of Blood

by Dennis Mahoney

Something strange is in your neighborhood, your bedroom, your body. Are ghosts haunted by the living? Is possession ever good? Are there strangers in the shadows—just like you—altering reality with dark, peculiar urges?

Meet the members of the Equinox Society: Claire, a caustic but compassionate demonologist; Amanda, a witch who wants to help; William, an occultist living in a haunted brownstone; and other ordinary people who share a fascination with the bizarre and otherworldly.

Their reports explore private fears and personal demons, offering glimpses of the nightscape all of us inhabit. A troubled vampire who stalks an abandoned shopping mall. A dead teen who emails from the past. An arsonist who starts real fires with her dreams.

My Heart is Full of Blood is an unflinching yet oddly optimistic collection of short horror fiction.

Genres: Horror, Audiobook, Short Stories

Audible Audio

Published September 22, 2022

Reviews

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun interesting horror short stories with multi cast. some stories were so so and others were really good!

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

A compilation of far too many mediocre horror/other worldly short stories made to sound like true events. Out of the 32 presented, only a couple were what I was hoping for.

2 stars for keeping me company whilst painting.

[Alison Giese · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a mixed bag. There definitely were a lot of really interesting original and clever concepts, and the narration was very good. But so many of stories had unsatisfying endings.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

Cleverly written - it reads with a lot of verisimilitude
Some genuinely scary pieces in this collection

[Mandy Hoiten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the stories!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strange book. It may be because the first time I listened to the podcast version I worked strictly overnights at a long term stay hotel at the edge of a college town in the summer, and something about that is very strange. Regardless, the intriguing and thought provoking vignettes are oddly comforting and always draws me in.

Best listened to during the dead of night, near the vernal equinox and beyond.

[R.J.]

Mixed bag. Great concept, never reaches its potential.

[TS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories were originally from the Equinox Society podcast, read by the author. The full cast is a nice touch, but I honestly did prefer the podcast -- it suited the episodic update format much better, and Mahoney narrating the collected stories worked, I think, better than an actual full cast production. The Audible Polish detracts from the intimacy of the original. Equinox Society felt like listening to the public face of a loose and otherwise secretive organization of people who deal with high strangeness. It's not really a collection of horror stories; it's Weird Fiction with an introspective bent, and the dark twists aren't meant to thrill so much as provoke.

I don't like starring reviews in general because I don't think ratings are actually a reliable measure of value. If you want spooky horror, this ain't it. If you want something that's going to sit in the back of your brain and murmur strange things to you in idle moments long after you finished, give it a shot.

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to review this one. As others have written, it's a really mixed bag. Don't expect horror -- it's mostly weird/paranormal/surreal stories that can range from lighthearted to a little darker. Most of them resolve, some really don't (which is always frustrating). Most of them are entertaining, others I ended up skipping through. After a while I started auto-skipping anything narrated by Claire.

Mostly, I liked the concept of a short story collection in the same world, with overlapping characters and sometimes overlapping events. Making them sound like reports or memorates was also a nice touch, as it made the stories feel more immediate.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bunch of short vignettes - some intertwined with each other but most stood on their own. reminded me of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark mixed with some more adult content akin to Books of Blood (not as explicit). i sensed this book was written for a younger crowd but there were some millennial / gen-x references peppered in.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a series of very short stories and when I started, I was impressed. But sadly it didn’t end that way for me. Some of the stories were interesting but a lot of them were just…meh. I liked that the main characters appeared in the stories, it added continuity to the collection. But I can’t really recommend this book.

[Carrie Campbell-jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really Weird Stories. I’m not sure how I got through these (probably as white noise) but I did. I’m a fan of narrator Cary Hite - which brought me to this book - definitely not his best work and it may have even been his FIRST work. The narrators were all pretty good, the stories were just weird as hell. I did my time… can’t get those hours back… moving on.

[Kaya Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure how to feel about this one...

Some short stories were better than others, but I think the frustrating part is that none of them have any kind of closure (which is fine I suppose if you don't mind open endings) but also I swear a couple stories were SO (maybe too) similar to each other it felt like listening to them twice...

Very underwhelming unfortunately

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but these were pretty decent. A little spooky, would not call it horror or suspenseful by any means. A good October read. The Audible description says "oddly optimistic" I would agree.

[Aya Blackwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. I enjoyed these stories and there are quite a few I would love to see expanded. I really enjoyed how they all existed in the same world. This author has a great imagination and I will be reading more.

[Shahna (VanquishingVolumes) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite short story collection in recent history but at least an enjoyable listen at bedtime (yes, I’m that girl). Not much more to say since I don’t want to give away plots, so I’ll say a decent read and leave it at that.

[Krista Messer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brought me back to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Very creative short horror stories! I loved how all of the stories had different narrators to fit the “character” that was telling the story

[Alan Villafana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the short stories and the connection of the characters. The supernatural element kept all the stories interesting.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was some weird $h!t.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging collection of loosely linked stories.

[Grunge SeaBunny · Rating 1 out of 5]

👎

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mainly silly stories and too glib and short to matter. The audio narration was spot on, but overall this is a disappointing and lackluster and mediocre effort.

[Dinnia DiGennaro · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a no

[Charlotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shitty blog posts narrated

[Trisha Monroe · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly was hoping to enjoy this collection but boy oh boy was it bad. Not worth the time to listen to in full. I got about half way when I just tossed up my hands. A complete lost cause.