I downloaded this anthology because it has a story from Kim M Watt in it. It also helped that the book is available for free from Amazon UK.

All the authors in this anthology were new to me except for Kim M. Watt and David Wright. There are twelves stories in the collection with Sean Platt, Kathryn Cottam and Ebony Graves contributing two stories each. 

I thought six of the stories were very strong. Both of Sean Platt’s stories were immediately immersive, delivering situations and ideas that pushed me to question things. Kim Watt’s take on suburban zombies was funny. I enjoyed seeing her write without the constraints of producing a Cozy story. Sawyer Black’s ‘The Kiddies‘ gave the zombie apocalypse a gruesome twist that will stick with me for some time. B. K, Burns’ ‘Underfoot/Crawlspace‘ was an action-packed story of survival in the face of violence that has me rooting for Maddy, the teenage heroine. ‘The Heirloom’ by Kathryn Cottam was one of the scariest stories on witchcraft that I’ve come across.

My review of all of the stories is HERE

‘The Christmas Party‘ is an Audible Orginals production that was included n my Audible membership. Sometimes these are good, and sometimes there’s a reason why they were free, ‘The Christmas Party’ was one of the good ones. It was a solid mystery, told mainly in the present day but with crucial flashbacks to the last time everyone had met, on Christmas Eve twelve years earlier. It’s a twist on the locked room mystery in that, if there was a murder, then the murderer is one of the six people currently snowed in at an isolated lochside house in Scotland. Add in a twist that one of the six has no memory of most of the party twelve years ago and so considers herself a suspect and this becomes a rubrics cube of possible murder suspects.

My review is HERE

I loved the Advent Calendars of my childhood because they looked good and opening a door each day was fun, even though some of the chocolates weren’t ones I liked. I feel the same way about ‘25 Days‘. The cover art was compelling. The idea was enticing. I loved the process of reading it, especially as a Buddy Read. It became a small part of my day that I looked forward to no matter what was behind the next door.

The disciplined structure of the story, one chapter a day, written from a single point of view that rotated in an unvarying pattern through the five family members, gave the book strength.

The story was frustrating at times. The BIg Bad had all the credibility of a Department Store Santa and the plot was as realistic as reindeer flying through the air, There was one really gory scene that I wanted to spit out (like biting into one of those nougat sweets in the Advent Calendar when I was hoping for butter toffee), BUT, I enjoyed the relationship between the sisters, I cheered for Abby, worried for Chloe, hoped that Beth would get to carry out her threat to kill the Big Bad and tried to see Adam’s good side, so some ot the story worked well. 

I wrote my reactions to each chapter on a daily basis. They start HERE

An insatiable, unstoppable beast, the wildfire called Jackknife has already devoured 17,000 acres of California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park. A devastating force of nature, it has brought out the very best – and worst – in those sworn to defeat it.

Ranger Anna Pigeon is among the exhausted firefighters, serving as medic and spike camp security, when an abrupt weather shift sends Jackknife racing relentlessly in their direction. And when the monstrous blaze has passed, Anna emerges from her protective shelter to discover two men are dead: one a victim of the hungry flames, the other stabbed through the heart. Now, trapped in a nightmarish landscape of snow and ash, cut off from rescue by a rampaging winter storm, Anna must investigate an inexplicable homicide – as she and nine others struggle to survive the terrible rage of nature… and the murderer in their midst.

To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning?

Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman’s head? Or was it when the priest’s assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman’s cassock? Or could it have been the priest’s visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed?

Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier?

Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they’d never found it…

After decades of adventuring, Viv the orc barbarian is finally hanging up her sword for good. Now she sets her sights on a new dream – for she plans to open the first coffee shop in the city of Thune. Even though no one there knows what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the past behind her, she can’t go it alone. And help might arrive from unexpected quarters. Yet old rivals and new stand in the way of success. And Thune’s shady underbelly could make it all too easy for Viv to take up the blade once more.

But the true reward of the uncharted path is the travellers you meet along the way. Whether bound by ancient magic, delicious pastries or a freshly brewed cup, they may become something deeper than Viv ever could have imagined . . .

In deepest winter, beware the coldest hearts . . .

London, 1850. Constance Horton has disappeared.

Maude, her older sister, knows only that Constance abandoned the apothecary they call home, and, disguised as a boy, boarded a ship bound for the Arctic. She never returned. ‘A tragic accident’, the Admiralty called it. But Maude Horton knows something isn’t right.

When she finds Constance’s journal, it becomes clear that the truth is being buried by sinister forces. To find answers – and deliver justice for her sister – Maude must step into London’s dark underbelly, and into the path of dangerous, powerful men. The kind of men who seek their fortune in the city’s horrors, from the hangings at Newgate to the ghoulish waxworks of Madame Tussaud’s.

It is a perilous task. But Maude has dangerous skills of her own . . .

Forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny lost his wife, Shay, to the very serial killer he’d hunted for five years. When Nathaniel Conrad—known as the Alphabet Man, for his love of tattooing codes onto his victims’ bodies—was condemned to death row, Callum thought the game of cat and mouse was over. But just before execution, Nathaniel drops a bombshell: he’s not the one who murdered Shay.

After analyzing the killer’s taunting, coded letters to authorities—one for each victim—FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto believes him. The discrepancies bear it out. So was it a copycat? A partner in crime? Or something more sinister? If Nathaniel knows the answer, Raisa fears he’ll be taking that closely guarded secret to his grave.

As Raisa and Callum are pulled into an investigation to solve Shay’s murder, it reopens old traumas that cut deeper than they could imagine. Before someone else dies, Raisa must decipher the unbelievable truth in an ever-twisting case built on a foundation of lies.