'The moon has always been with us -- tempting us, enticing us, and enthralling us through the ages. Here you'll find thirteen stories involving this heavenly body -- sometimes tragic, magical, and other times mysterious, or horrific, but always, memorable.'
Moonlit Dreams, Moonlit Nightmares is one of the more interesting anthology books that I've read. Most anthologies have a theme that connects them, even if it's something as basic as being the same genre. This book is connected by the moon, and the stories within its pages are so varied in style and genre because of this that it makes for such an interesting and eclectic collection, one that I really enjoyed reading.
'A Consultation by Moonlight' by Thomas Vaughn is the first story in the book, and has a very dark tone. It follows a group of Roman politicians who have travelled a long way to talk to a witch, a woman who has the ability to glimpse into the future, so that Clodius can find out if he will come to rule the empire. The tale takes place in a creepy graveyard on a moonlit night, and is full of atmosphere and horror. The story builds up with a slow sense of dread, before it devolves into full horror. The story is great for setting the tone for the rest of the book, letting the readers know that they should expect stories that will take you by surprise, and go to some dark places.
'A Visitation' by Parineeta Singh is also a horror, but takes a more subtle approach, and doesn't rely on some of the shock and gore that the previous story does. In the story flora is a young woman who has travelled to spend Christmas with her boyfriend and her family, but because her partner is a bit shit, she has to find a hotel to stay in. She finds the Bull's Eye, a small hotel, and begins to see a strange spectral dog in the lounge area night after night. Flora begins to doubt her sanity, questioning if what she's seeing can really be true.
Lori Tiron-Pandit's 'Receiving Room' is a hugely fascinating story. It's presented in the form of a journal that logs a series of dreams that a young woman is having about her recently deceased friend Margo. Margo had been struggling with mental health struggles for years before she passed away. Over the course of these journal entries we learn more and more about Margo and her life, as well as getting a hint that something isn't quite right about the dreams being recorded on these pages. Each dream gets progressively darker, moving closer and closer to nightmares, and begins to hint at something dark on the horizon. It's a story that will definitely stick with you once it's done.
'The First Victims Club' by Shaun Avery is a very different feeling story, one that takes a strange and unique take on the classic slasher horror story. The story follows Greg, the victim of a vicious killer who wakes up in an afterlife where he and other 'first victims' have been brought together to view events back on earth following their deaths, allowing them to see how things have continued without them. Greg finds out that his girlfriend, Sindy, has turned Greg's death into something that she can profit from, and has made Greg into a villain. Alongside another first victim, Arabella, Greg must find a way to save his mother's life, and bring Sindy down. The story is so different from others in this collection, and takes such an interesting approach to death and the afterlife that it really stands out as something fun and different.
'Todd P. Taylor's 'The Experiment' is a particularly dark tale, one that sees the narrator becoming obsessed with a homeless man that he nicknames 'The Ratman'. The narrator decides to see how the homeless man will react to being left food, and devises a little experiment that he can perform. I won't say too much about what else happens in this story as it will spoil things, but I will say that the events are certainly disturbing. It's probably one of the darker and more upsetting of the stories because it doesn't rely on the supernatural like most of the other tales collected here, but is very grounded in the real world. The fact that a lot of this story could actually happen makes it scarier.
These are just some of the stories available in this collection, and show off the variety of stories that the book represents. Whether you're into stories that will make you think, that explore insanity and the extraordinary, or stories about ghosts and killers, Moonlit Dreams, Moonlit Nightmares will have something that will appeal to you, and a number of stories that could surprise you too. A brilliant anthology with something for everyone.
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