Review- Unburied: A Collection of Queer Dark Stories by Rebecca Rowland

  BOOK SUMMARY:

An asteroid miner recovering from an accident learns that the cure might be scarier than the trauma. A man discovers a mirror in an antiques shop that allows its gazers to climb inside and visit paradise. A teenager is haunted by the memory of a strange boy who appeared in his bedroom when he was a child. A future pandemic survivor is forced to make a terrible sacrifice in order to save the world's gay male population. A cult survivor sees a man who reminds him of someone from the past and begins to lose a bit of his hard-earned control. An entity that exhibits characteristics of both angel and vampire tells its peculiar story to an anonymous confessor and potential lover in the shadows of an LGBTQ club.

  Silent film actresses who haunt a Hollywood Hills mansion, mysterious beings who lurk in the closet, and witches who may or may not live under the bed: these and many other dark fiction entities from this twisted box of curiosities come together to serve the reader a cornucopia of chilling horror, sci-fi terror, and dark fantasy. In a bloody twist on the antiquated trope of "burying the gays,” sixteen established and award-winning genre fiction scribes from around the globe, including Felice Picano (Lambda Award nominee and co-founder of The Violet Quill), Greg Herren (Lambda Award winner and co-founder of the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival), Daniel M. Jaffe (Rainbow Award and American Fiction Prize finalist), and Thomas Kearnes (2019 Lambda Award nominee), put forth a dazzling array of creature features, shadow fables, and dreadful delusions spotlighting LGBTQ+ characters. 

  Prepare to unearth your deepest nightmares.

Release date: June 1st 2021

Published by: Dark Ink

Page numbers: 280

REVIEW: 

A collection of queer dark fiction sounded right up my alley and super intriguing. To top it all of, Unburied is a collection of short stories that are just the perfect length and still manage to pack in heaps of action, which works perfectly. From supernatural, psychological, science fiction and paranormal horror to dark fantasy to ghost stories to psychological thrillers, this collection has something for all taste buds and each story is unique, spooky and shudder in its own way.

While it took me a while to really get into the collection as a whole, there are many stories that I know are going to stay with me for a long time to come. I did consider mentioning them, only to realise it’s more than half of them, so I will let the titles pass. The reason I picked up this book is because it has a not so surprisingly astonishing short story by my all time favourite writer, Azzurra Nox.

Overall, this collection is packed with engrossing and spine-chilling stories that are so well written and narrated that you will definitely want more. If you’re into horror and psychological thrillers, this is the perfect book for you. To come up with a horror stories collection that is queer only is a brilliant idea and in this case, it was executed astoundingly.

Another point worth mentioning is that this collection is really an eye-opener in a way in that it takes up serious issues like domestic violence in same sex relationships and mental illnesses in manner that’s implicit but still makes one ponder and in turn, probably serving its purpose in the first place.

*Note: A copy of this book was provided by Rebecca Rowland in exchange for an honest review. We thank them.