When I was a kid in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I read a lot of horror comics, such as DC's House of Mystery and House of Secrets, and all of Charlton's horror titles. I also read the black and white Warren magazines Eerie and Creepy. Reading Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror reminds me of those days, because while all of the stories in the anthology were adequate entertainment, most of them were mediocre and forgettable, with a few gems scattered among them. And that reminds me of most c...

Not enough Lunley. Pretty good but not great

An interesting mix of horror stories. Some were very creepy to the point of not wanting to be alone in the house. Others were disappointing and left me wondering where the horror was. Overall a good read though.

Many Eerie StoriesI love short stories. They give you the opportunity to discover new authors. Short stories require authors to slice away unnecessary words and draw you in quickly. This book is a fine example of this art. Many intense stories, some better than others, all good. I am glad I found this book in a group giveaway. There are several authors I will be following and purchasing more of their work.

I was prepared to declare this one of the best anthologies I've read in awhile after finding the first four stories and six of the first eight to be really enjoyable. Sadly, as seems the norm these days, for the rest of the collection the stories were mainly average, with a few that had great potential but sputtered out at the end, and a couple I didn't finish. For the most part the tales were at least a little better than a lot of the short fiction out there, but once you get past the Brian Lum...

This books isn't inherently bad, but it's not very good either. The problem is that interesting stories are mixed in between uninteresting or absurd stories, which doesn't encourage a reader to finish. I liked a few of the early stories, but there were some that were trying too hard or just not engaging. This is the curse of an anthology, though. It is hard to create something that fires each and every time.

Often, I find it difficult to rate anthologies since there are usually excellent mixed with, shall we say, not so excellent. This collection is far easier though. There are a few that deserve more than 5 stars and only one that I would rank as 3 stars and please note that I try to base this on the genre not the entire world of literature. I enjoyed these tales very much and read all of them within two days. I highly recommend it and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Read via Kindle Unlimited

Good book. This was a good book, not a great one, but worth reading. I’m not going through each story and say what I liked and disliked as this my prejudice your thoughts and enjoyment of the stories. Although this was stated as a Horror Anthology I did not find the books to be that frightening. Good storytelling yes, horror not so much. If you are on the sensitive side this might affect you more. Like I said, good book but not great. Still worth a read though.

Great collection of short stories........... I read all but 1 that turned me off in the first few pages. Not saying which one, cause maybe YOU'LL like it! LOL Fast read........... they were short enough that I could read one whole story while on my half hour lunch bread at work! LOVE this type of book........ you can put it down and resume it at any time. Def worth adding to your to read list!

Couldn’t put this down. Each story was different from the next and kept me reading all through the night. Even though they are short stories, they were gripping and had you from beginning to end. I hope there are sequels.

Like any anthology this collection has very good stories, some mediocre stories and some just silly. Entertaining none the less

I really enjoyed this collection of stories, even though not all of them were that scary (or I'm just getting desensitised) and a few were weaker than others. I particularly liked Shine On, Harvest Moon which combined horror with an important lesson in the potential consequences of bullying, the Lady with Teeth Like Knives another with an important life lesson embedded in its pages and the Butterfly which combined the natural and captivating beauty of a butterfly with the horror of death in a su...

Eerie and PoeticAn amazing collection of darkness, this anthology does not have one bad story in the bunch. Both highly imaginative and deeply disturbing, this collection holds great rewards for the horror connoisseur.

These were like Alfred Hitchcock: great, surprising endings. Problem is, anthologies are hard to read because it's hard to get into so many stories. I lost interest about midway.

This was (briefly) free on Kindle; since it was October I nabbed it. It was certainly worth the going price of $2.99; none of the stories are actively bad, most are reasonably good, and a couple made a significant impression on me. These include:"The Candle and the Darkness", by Aric Sundquist. A small holy candle protects a mother and daughter against the Darkness of Armageddon, as long as it lasts."The Lullaby Man", by John McNee. A childhood bogeyman. A really creepy childhood bogey man."The

Great short storiesThis is a read if you do not have time to dive into a full novel. The short stories reminded me of my favorite show as a kid the twilight zone. I never missed an episode. Please down load this book you will not be disappointed.

Good anthologyI enjoy anthologies to sample a variety of authors and discover new ones to enjoy. About seventy five percent were very good. The rest were okay. Not bad for the collection.

Enthralling and Spooky!This collection of short stories was of the highest standard. The element of horror varied from one story to the next but all had a supernatural theme. I will admit to not understanding one or two stories but, overall, I found the collection very entertaining.

This is an impressive collection of short stories. Normally I find collections like this can be a bit hit and miss with some rubbish in amongst a few gems but I enjoyed all of these stories. Sure some were better than others but none were less than 3*/5 and we had plenty of 4’s and 5’s. I read one roughly every day, each day a different story and they are wildly different - I think we have all types of horror here so I am sure there is something for everyone. Thoroughly enjoyed this and I do rec...

What a great short story collection for October. You know it’s going to be bloody, it’s in the title and you know it might be pretty good from the line up of well known genre authors, but what turned out to be a pleasant surprise is just how uniformly good the quality was divided equally between the writers I knew and those I’ve never even heard of. The thing with anthologies is that for some reason that don’t really stick in my memory, the overall idea of how much I liked it does, but for the l...