Today I’m taking part in the blog tour for Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology. My review is written with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell for inviting me on the tour and to the editor for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

All royalties will be donated to the British Heart Foundation & the American Heart Association.

There is more to fear on a silent night than who is coming down the chimney. The writers of this anthology present to you a feast of festive frights. Read them if you dare, and find out why you should never turn your back on the centerpiece of this joyous holiday…the Christmas tree. 26 writers. 26 stories. Featuring tales by: LaShane Arnett – Brian Bowyer – Mallory Cywinski – Loki DeWitt – Harriet Everend – J. Grell – Kev Harrison – Amber Hathaway – Ross Jeffery – A.D Jones – Jason A. Jones – Caleb James K. – Ronaldo Katwaroo – Jason Kyriacou – Christopher La Vigna – Konn Lavery – Ivan Lopez – Y. M. Miller – Scott McGregor – E.H Regan – Lennox Rex – Hayden Robinson – Rebecca Rowland – Bethany Russo – Alyssa E. Stadnyk, & L. Stephenson

Review:

I haven’t seen many horror anthologies on the market before, especially with a Christmas theme, so I was looking forward to getting stuck into this one. The stories in Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology are headed with a date rather than a title, so this means the anthology mirrors an advent calendar, where you would read one story each day in the run up to Christmas. (You also get a bonus story on Boxing Day.) Although I read these stories before Advent, in advance of the blog tour, I did try to replicate this by reading one story a day, and it really worked! It gave me something to look forward to every morning for nearly a month! This was ideal for me as someone who is reasonably new to the genre, as it meant I was eased in quite gently.

The majority of the stories in Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology are written by authors with whom I was not previously familiar, but I now have a host of authors to look out for! The stories are all very different from each other (although I am now quite wary of having a Christmas tree in my house) but I enjoyed them all, and would love to read more from the authors!

As you can see from the blurb, the proceeds from Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology will be donated to the British Heart Foundation and the American Heart Association, which are obviously both wonderful charities. It’s a fitting choice for a collection of really tense and gripping stories!

Violent Advents: A Christmas Horror Anthology is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: