Cosy horror with a stinging tail - 4 - star

The horror books of Shirley Jackson rely much more on the imagination of the reader rather than descriptions of blood soaked body parts, and in that respect I find this type of horror much more acceptable. “When things get dark” is a compilation of 18 stories by many well respected names and as in most collections of this type some are stronger than others. The beauty is that if a particular episode is not to your liking then very soon you will be moving forward to the next chapter and indeed the next guest author. I enjoyed all 18 stories but in particular story 1 Funeral Birds where Lenore returning from the funeral of Dolores finds that all did not go quite as planned. There is some sweet dark humour and one rather stunning nasty shock to be revealed. The 2nd story of note is “Quiet Dead Things” by Joyce Carol Oates, a rather chilling story of a child abandoned.The prose throughout is direct, clear and simple to understand making for really enjoyable reading, and worthy of a very solid 4 stars! Many thanks to the good people at netgalley for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written.