ALL THESE SUNKEN SOULS, EDITED BY CIRCE MOSKOWITZ
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - "What happens when you're not willing to die for another? The only price is you bear it." - 'No Harm Done,' Circe Moskowitz
SUMMARY
In All These Sunken Souls, horror is explored through a blending and bending of genres–ghost stories, folklore, gothic, and weird, among others–written by both established and debut Black authors.
REVIEW
All These Sunken Souls hits like hell and doesn’t stop. Every time I thought I’d surely found the standout story in the collection another came along and vied hard for the position, leaving me with three choices and no desire to choose favorites. So I shan’t!
It's rare a story seems to speak to me from the page—as though it's taken on a life, an audible voice, of its own. “Be Not Afraid” by Ashia Monet, “The Consumption of Vienna Montrose” by Joelle Wellington, and “Mother, Daughter, and the Devil” by Donyae Coles, spoke. The narratives are fresh and unique while conversing with tropes, stories, and histories that came before them. They feature beautifully crafted female characters written with depth and tenderness.
Save one, every single short story was as least three stars, with most of them being four or five stars for me. The exception was a matter of purely taste–I didn’t enjoy the first five pages, skimmed ahead, and realized that my issue (the prose style) persisted throughout. So I skipped it. (I only mention the fact I DNF’d this one story for transparency’s sake, as this was an ARC.)
Broadly speaking, this collection features tropes and themes I love love LOVE in horror. Body horror (tooth, flesh, and bone), names (and the lack of them), houses (sentient or otherwise), biblical imagery (of the accurate angelic sort), folk tales and ghost stories (told and acted), and the comfort–yet also the horrific pain–of isolation.
And that’s not all, of course. But you’ll have to explore the rest yourself in October.
For my individual star ratings for each short story, see my Storygraph review.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you like horror, you absolutely must read this collection. Doubly so if you have interest in diverse horror, horror short stories, or, like me, just love a visceral, still-dripping piece of character-driven horror prose.
Thank you to Amberjack Publishing for providing a digital ARC via Netgalley. If you are interested in All These Sunken Souls, it will be released 17 October 2023. Find more information via the editor. If possible, support indie bookshops by purchasing the novel from your local brick and mortar or from Bookshop.org!
User-defined content warnings are available via Storygraph.