A collection of short-stories with quite suggestive titles indeed, featuring “That’s Creepy Santa” and other stories involving a Christmas spirit and holiday celebrations. The great thing about books, is that you don’t have to be on the season they refer to in order to fully enjoy them, but this short collection will surely be of interest in every Christmas and Holiday Season, because we are talking about the Award-Winning Writer, Julie Kusma, a.k.a, THE “Queen of Horror” of the Writing Community on Twitter, – She was also featured on our June and October E-mags, so quality of high order is to expect and surely to get from each and every book she writes, as so has been happening.
That’s Creepy Santa is the first Christmas short-story, involving Maya, her husband and her unsatisfied mother-in-law, that seems like a central piece of discussion to the couple, and the day of Chistmas Eve, that they planned to spend alone, they recieve a present from her, or so they think.
We have a mysterious present that may be cursed in some way.
The interactions between Maya and Paul are very realistic, and you can feel that both of them are a “real” couple within a few lines of conversations and some paragraphs read, and that’s a very nice touch by Julie Kusma. The reader can feel the personalities and the motives of the characters as they read but the narrator gives no direct clues, or direct statements about them, everything is ingrained in the story with ease.
There’s unrestrainned brutality, blood and horror that reaches the point of beautifuly macabre and twisted when we read the scenes that Julie Kusma prepared for us, making us try to understand the reasons behind the plot, not minding, at all if brutality and horror is all there is to the story, because we feel that, in our depths, it’s enjoyable, specially after that INCREDIBE final plot twist. NICE!
Ressurrection is a story about Grace, a mother that still mourns the loss of her sister every Christmas that lives in a weird town that doesn’t decorate the streets on the Christmas Holiday Season, which is very weird, and somewhat creepy…
In this story, we have two very interesting girls with different backgrounds that apparently clash with ease due to such differences.
As things progress, and they go shopping for presents, one of the girls feels strangely attracted to a place, and hears a certain item calling her, an item that was deliberately hidden from public and stored away, and for good reason. The weirdest thing about it is that she feels terrifically happy all the time, too happy, too delighted, as if she was drugged even. Creepy…
A great thing about these stories is that they are connected in some way and the continuation of one story to the other gives a flow and adds layers to both the previous and the next story we’ll read, which is fantastic!
In this second story, we are revealed secrets inside this story and secrets on the previous one that make this whole book even creepier, giving us realizations behind many motives around the town’s atmosphere and creepy lack of decorations. There are so many details and Easter eggs that you will want to pay close attention after you realize what Julie Kusma did. Awesome stuff here.
Julie Kusma knows how to give stark personalities, disgusting, or very likable traits to the characters in play, and toy with our sense of bizarre. It’s delightful to see how easily a scene can turn from normal to creepy and from warm to frigid.
The three stories are stringed masterfully, and at the end, we get a piece of information that promises more stories like this, and things get more interesting.
We should have a full book about these stories because there are so many secrets and revelations. This collection of short-stories is vey nice. Loved it!
Pros:
- Great narrative
- Very simple and original main plots with side plots emerging everywhere
- A perfect infusion of the macabre in the story
- Plot twists in all of the stories
- Great character construction and display
- The book evolves and promises more sequel
- There are surprises in many scenes and the horror is unexpected
Cons:
- There aren’t more stories, lol
Scribble's Worth 