The darkness consumes you cell after cell, making you wonder about your own feeble existence as a result. Why are you here? What’s the point? It’s dire, it’s incredibly dark and the situation gives you the heebie-jeebies. Haunting, scary, undeniably chilling, Bloody Parchment: Hidden Things, Lost Things and Other Stories will give the reader their moneys worth as 10 authors collaborate to bring to us an anthology like no other. Straight from South Africa and featuring some international names as well, Bloody Parchment: Hidden Things, Lost Things and Other Stories, makes for a thrilling adventure into the unknown.
With ten equally disturbing tales, the reader will find it difficult to fall asleep after reading this book. The organisers of The South African Horrorfest – which is held annually in Cape Town – started the Bloody Parchment part of the festival a few years back, in order to showcase horror in literature along with their usual horror film extravaganza. However, nobody thought it would turn into such a big event and now, Ekhaya – an imprint of Random House Struik publishers – has noticed that the market wants to read what horror has to offer from not only local authors, but so too from international authors.
With world class editing by Nerine Dorman, it’s a fun little read that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat as you move from one story to the next on a Sunday afternoon. The thrilling tales will spook the living daylights out of younger, less horror-orientated readers and frankly, I’m proud to say that now we too have a horror anthology that will be able to give other, more established horror anthologies, a run for their money. That being said though, I review anthologies as a whole and although Bloody Parchment: Hidden Things, Lost Things and Other Stories works as a whole, some stories are better written than others. This is usually the problem when it comes to anthologies, but it doesn’t take away from the quality of the book at all. Sometimes the reader will just feel more captivated by one writing style than another and there is nothing wrong with that.
Stories that stood out for me in this anthology were Duck Creek Road by Stacey Larner and Fluoride in the Water by Mico Pisanti, so I’ll be sure to keep a lookout for these two writers’ works in the future.
So, if you’re in the mood for something new to read, click on the image and it’ll take you to the Amazon page. For non-kindle users, please visit https://www.mybooks.co.za/book/13046/bloody-parchment where you can find ePub and PDF downloadable formats (it’s a lot cheaper than on Amazon). Also, don’t forget to get your hands on some tickets for the South African Horrorfest. For more information about that, please visit their website at http://www.horrorfest.info/.
