Friday, October 30, 2020

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30 - Book



A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle. Valancourt Books. 1986.

I'd heard about this book in the pre internet days and hunted used book stores for a copy to no avail. Published in the UK back in 1986, and never published in the United States until Valancourt Books recently reprinted it as part of its Paperbacks From Hell series, I can say that the wait was worth it.

This is a collection of thirteen short stories.  My experience with short story collections is that there are usually a couple of real stand outs, a bunch of really good ones, and a few that don't really cut it. In Tuttle's collection every single one is a standout. Any one story chosen at random is worth the price of the book. Chilling and often with heart crushing pessimistic endings each story here is a dark gem. I'm happy to see Valancourt is reprinting more of her work, because I'm ready for more.




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