Black Joy by various authors

Black Joy by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over a month

Pages - 416

Publisher - Penguin

Source - Vine

Blurb from Goodreads

Love, literature, friendship, music, carnival, travel, dance, work, nature, food - Black Joy can be found in so many places.


Edited by award-winning journalist Charlie Brinkhust-Cuff and up-and-coming talent Timi Sotire, join twenty-eight inspirational voices in this uplifting and empowering anthology as they come together to celebrate being Black British, sharing their experiences of joy and what it means to them.


With incredible pieces from:

Diane Abbott - Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé - Fopé Ajanaku - Athian Akec - Travis Alabanza - Haaniyah Angus - Rukiat Ashawe - Bukky Bakray - Richie Brave - Munya Chawawa - Ruby Fatimilehin - Theophina Gabriel - Lauryn Green - Ife Grillo - Isaac James - Chanté Joseph - Vanessa Kisuule - Henrie Kwushue - Tobi Kyeremateng - Mikai McDermott - Jason Okundaye - Tope Olufemi - Melz Owusu - Leigh-Anne Pinnock - Mayowa Quadri - Lavinya Stennett - Timi Sotire - Sophia Tassew

An exciting, much-needed collection of writing perfect for readers of Feminists Don't Wear Pink, Slay in Your Lane and Love in Colour.


My Review

Normally when I take so long to read a book it is because I am not enjoying it, it was the opposite with this one. I really liked it however because it is real stories from people you want to take time to digest it. Each story also ends with a box telling you to do, think, try, call so you just take a bit of time going over what you read.

Lots of experiences, some uplifting, some emotive but all with joy, happiness and or personal growth. You will recognise some of the names in this book, famous people whose experiences may well shock you, the girl from a well known successful pop group being treated very different to her colleagues because of the colour of her skin. How she became stronger and learned to love herself, we learn about her heritage, growing up in love and encouragement.

Some of the stories have some challenging issues to say the least the authors have experienced in their lives and things of joy, power, happiness they share with the reader. It really makes you stop and think, so much tradition, family values and food it was so nice reading so many different life stories infused with ideas for the reader to find their own joy.

It is a different book, it touches on harder aspects of life/inequality/feelings/emotions and despite the things some of the authors have endured they still find happiness, pride and joy and share that with the reader, 4/5 for me!

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The Rivals of Dracula Stories from the Golden Age of Gothic Horror

The Rivals of Dracula: Stories from the Golden Age of Gothic Horror by Nick Rennison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 288

Publisher - OldCastle Books

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, still the most famous of all vampire stories, was first published in 1897. But the bloodsucking Count was not the only member of the undead to bare his fangs in the literature of the period. Late Victorian and Edwardian fiction is full of vampires and this anthology of scary stories introduces modern readers to 15 of them. A travel writer in Sweden unleashes something awful from an ancient mausoleum. A psychic detective battles a vampire that has taken refuge in an Egyptian mummy. A nightmare becomes reality in the tower room of a gloomy country house. Including works by both well known writers of the supernatural such as M. R. James and E. F. Benson and less familiar authors like the Australian Hume Nisbet and the American F. Marion Crawford, The Rivals of Dracula is a collection of classic tales to chill the blood and tingle the spine.


My Review

Firstly let me say i am not a fan of short stories in general, I always find I am left unsatisfied and left hanging with them. For that reason alone I generally tend to avoid them, unless you are master King of course. This wee book offers up 15 short stories with vampires or some kind of vampiric theme. The very first story reminded me of old school vamp, like the movies I grew up with, I was picturing Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, it just set me off on a high with this book.

Each chapter gives us a brief history on the author and their work as well as the year of birth and death. Some of these guys and gals were the 1800s so not familiar authors for me. I absolutely am taking note of their names and will be tracking down pretty much all of their works because even those I didn't love I still enjoyed and liked. A Medusa type character with a different spin to her, a few dodgy old houses, love love love them and the eerie gothic creepy spin to the stories. Sometimes an old house is enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, some of these authors bring that setting right to life, I wanted them all made into movies! There is a tree one that whilst not my fav by far but I loved the different spin and you get a back story, you don't often get that in vampires stories let alone a short story one!

Each author has a very different style yet all manage the eerie creepy vibes and feel you used to get with the black and white movies on a Saturday night. This book is a wee gem and it is a shame it lay on my shelves for so long. I kind of want this to be a keeper but I also want to share it with folk so I think I may put it up as a giveaway on my blog. I will for sure be checking out more of these authors, all of them. If you are a vampire fan, even if you don't like short stories, please check this book out guys it is a great read, 4.5/5 for me this time.

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Review - The Living Dead by various authors

Well you imagine a book with a collection of short stories about zombies, how could you go wrong? Well you can, the second story (I believe it was or maybe the third) didn't even have zombies in it. It was people reunited through playing zombies in a zombie movie *sigh*. It would probably have been quite enjoyable in any other setting but the fact you pick up a book expecting it to be all zombie stories and its not does lead to dissapoitment.

On a positive note there was some great new zombie ideas in there and I mostly enjoyed the stories just a select few annoyed me and that is always enough to pull a scoring down on the book.

I was delighted to find a Stephen King addition in there (one of my fav horror authors as a child and still enjoy as an adult).

The start or each story gives you a little about the author (and some books they have written, briefly) and a small bit of info about the story that follows.

Had the stories all been 100% zombies I would have probably given it a 5 but the few sneaky not proper flesh tearing ones dragged it down a little for me. Overall though any zombies fans should give it a go and you will pick up a few new authors and zombie titles in there. 3 of 5 for me.