Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of Giovanni Washington’s Flowers of the Void. A series of short stories exploring dark themes. Each story was well written and self contained and continued to surprise.

”Don’t worry, this house is safe from ‘demonic forces’.
Except the ones you already left in.”

A dangerous seance goes horribly wrong. A girl carries out a tricky mission of revenge and retribution. A young member of a coven in Salem tries to become accepted and resurrect her lover in a story with a unique feeling, whimsical, gothic, haunting. A tender boy, quiet and kind-hearted, is fascinated by the peculiar behaviour of a strange classmate with an unnervingly special family. A girl without a shadow tries to face a world suspicious and enticing.

A woman suffering tremendous personal trauma is in need of new skin. A heavily wounded man struggles under the psychological abuse of his mother-in-law (well, aren’t we all…?) A dollmaker creates comforting likenesses of the beloved deceased. An Angel of Death finds prey in a bar.

Dark stories (some of them will be really hard to stomach) where the supernatural meets the REAL terror of physical and emotional pain. A few of the stories may seem too confusing, disjointed, lacking a clear direction, but others are simply literary gems.

Definitely difficult, undeniably unique.

Many thanks to Serpent’s Tail and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of Giovanni Washington’s Flowers of the Void! This is a deliciously dark collection of short stories in the horror and sci-fi/fantasy realm. I’m always impressed when authors of short stories can build a fantastical world or develop an otherworldly concept in just a few short pages. Some of these stories are stronger than others, but I wouldn’t say any are bad at all, just less developed or less creative than others.

In these stories, alien creatures roam the countryside developing a macabre obsession with human eyeballs; real-life predators are delivered supernatural justice for their crimes; a shadow-less girl meets a body-less shadow and together they wreak havoc. One of my favourites was Take It From Me, a melancholy story where emotional and mental tolls manifest as physical symptoms - bad dreams make your eyebrows fall out, a bad break up sees you lose an arm. In another, a teenage boy who’s always felt invisible makes friends with another boy who’s been 14 longer than he cares to admit.

Washington uses the supernatural and a creeping unease to explore very human concepts such as friendship, loneliness, heartbreak, fear of death, and finding a place to call your own. Very solid collection, the atmosphere gets under your skin and the writing and world-building both are assured.

An interesting and fun collection of macabre short stories. Each story felt very different, and I loved how there was a unique voice and perspective in each! There was lots of newness about this, which made it even more fun to read!

A haunting collection of short gothic stories. I LOVED redemption express, when I cry it's someone elses blood, and take it from me, but the rest didn't really hit where I wanted them to.

An interesting and unique collection of macabre short stories. Every single story felt very different and there were some very fresh takes on horror alongside some tried and true spooky tropes. A fun read and I'm interested to read more from the author!

This is a book with different novellas - that is to say each story stands on its own. I could certainly see the craftmanship in the language but none of the stories really stuck to me at all. Not the book for me but I’m sure other people will enjoy it a lot more.

The description of this horror collection from Gianni Washington had me intrigued as it sounded so varied, varied but all of the descriptions were so dark.

The first story gripped me immediately and was a good indication of the quality of the rest of the collection, so Cenobite, and so well written

From cosmic horror this collection of short stories seemed to have something for all tastes, some slightly bloodier than others, some going down a very slow burn route, but no matter which story it was the pay off was always worth it.

As with all collections some where stronger than others but that is always down to personal taste and for me my three stand outs were: Prelude: The Glass Terminal, Redemption Express, and Hold Still, but there really isn’t a terrible story in this collection.

This is a great example of the short story horror form and looking forward to reading more from Gianni.

I received this from NetGalley and Serpent’s Tail in exchange for an honest review.

I don't usually pick up short story collections but I was drawn to "Flowers from the Void" by Gianni Washington because it is published by Viper, my favourite publishing house. Sadly it was a mixed bag. Most stories didn't stick and I found myself skimming over them. However there are some real gems in this collection and like a previous reviewer, I really enjoyed the stories about the girl and her shadow, the alien obsessed with eyeballs and the people whose bodies were falling apart. Those stories definitely scored higher than my overall rating of 3.

Got this for review from netgalley.
There where some stories that really griped me and I very much liked others didn't stick. But it was well written but as its easy with short story collections some where higher and some didn't hit as much. But the ones I really liked where 4 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review.

For me this was a 3.5 stars.

This is a solid collection of stories. I did find myself liking some more than others, but overall, I did enjoy this!

The characters are written very well and the pacing was excellent. I think I wanted a bit more out of some of the stories.

I would still recommend to any fans of the genre though.

The main thing I’m looking for in a SFF short story collection is creativity and Flowers from the Void definitely delivers that! Every story feels so different and I loved that. Not all of them were hits for me (as is it be expected with any short story collection), but a good deal of them were. My three favourites had to be the one about the alien creature that was fascinated by human eyeballs, the one about the little girl who lacked a shadow, and the one where people’s bodies fell apart.

It can also often be a little jarring jumping between stories in a collection, but I felt settled into each tale in Flowers from the Void within just a page or two, which is a testament to how well written it is. I’m looking forward to reading more from Gianni Washington in the future because this collection was darkly delightful.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review!

3 stars!

I sadly didn’t love this as much I had hoped but one story I really liked which was Under Your Skin. I got really invested into Phillip’s story and character and could easily read a full length story from that.

I loved how the collection was written, it was well done and had really great descriptions that created a fantastic atmosphere while reading, I just sadly didn’t get invested in all of the stories as I did with Under Your Skin.