Genre: Horror

Age: Adult

I don’t usually request samplers – especially not for anthologies, and if this had made it clear this was a sampler, I would have just waited until the book came out to get it. It’s incredibly hard to make a judgement on an anthology with only two stories from it. Anthologies hinge so much on how they all come together, and I’ve read anthologies in the past where the quality of stories varies massively. That said, this has such a solid list of names attached I’d be confident the rest of the stories are as good as the two I’ve now read.

The two stories included the sampler were Reckless Eyeballing by N.K. Jemisin and Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse. With those names, you know you’re in for something good, and I was far from disappointed by these two. Reckless Eyeballing gives us a cop who starts pulling people over because he sees blinking eyes on their headlights. It’s creepy in a kind of understated way, and an excellent offering from one of my favourite writers.

Eye & Tooth absolutely hit a soft spot for me. Two siblings who travel around taking care of supernatural problems, each bringing their own special talents to the table. This one was intriguing as hell, had me totally hooked and if Roanhorse does more stories with these characters, I definitely want to read them. The ending packed a great punch, too.

So yes, not overly pleased this was a sampler and not identified as such, but still grateful to read these stories from two excellent writers, and eager to actually get my hands on a finished copy of this book, which is sure to be one of the top anthologies of this year.

Amazon UK

Bookshop UK

Review by Elle Turpitt

Twitter: @elleturpitt

Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social

www.elleturpittediting.com

I received this sampler from Picador via NetGalley for review consideration.