Nightly Visits

HORROR, SUSPENSE/THRILLER:  This is a collection of short stories where the unifying theme is dreams.  In “Glasswalker,” Krista is racing against the clock to get to an important meeting on time.  In “Red Socks,” Marie takes care of everyone except herself.  Steven’s big brother instills fear in him when they are kids in “The Witches’ Post,” and it affects him profoundly as an adult.  In “Indwelling,” Charles struggles to get his family to safety after noticing the people of his town are behaving oddly, and the last story, “Earl,” shows what happens after a boy’s mother admonishes him to “never kill anything that you are not going to eat.”  

This is a great set of horror stories!  The author’s style is similar to Stephen King in the way that the characters are very relatable, and the path to their downfall is paved with small missteps over time instead of one big, bad choice.  The author notes that this anthology is about dreamers, but more accurately, these stories are about how people deal with the stresses of life and the decisions they make when pressed by time, fear, or the expectations of others.  Not everyone reacts as expected.  In fact, each narrator has a surprise for the reader before the end of his/her individual tale.  Each character’s tribulation is gripping, and the little curveballs turn already good stories into truly memorable ones.  Another round of editing is needed to fix incorrect homophones that slipped past spell-check, but this minor quibble should not prevent readers from enjoying “nightly visits” with this book!  

Leslie Stokes