From cabins in the woods to post-apocalyptic cities, monsters lurk everywhere. Discover the sinister secret of a traveling carnival, spend a holiday with masked mummers, and visit a small town with unusual traditions and a penchant for gargoyles.

We Are All Monsters Here collects nineteen of Kelley Armstrong’s eeriest short stories published over the past two decades. Each tale features a cast of colorful—if at times unsettling—characters, including a physics student haunted by their past, an elderly author plotting a murder mystery, a young boy troubled by the screams of dragons, a reluctant preacher challenged by a stranger who can resurrect the dead, and survivors of the apocalypse searching for a safe place to call home.

Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other classic creatures are portrayed in refreshingly unique ways. A master of paranormal mystery, Armstrong subverts reader expectations with clever twists and turns; for while a monster is at the heart of every story, not all have claws or fangs or a thirst for blood—the most terrifying are the seemingly average people driven to monstrous acts.

I am not particularly a horror or a short story fan but I am a fan of Kelley Armstrong and so far, across all genres, she has not written anything I have been disappointed in so I was willing to try her collection of horror shorts. I will admit the very first story, Absinthe & Angels, almost had me changing my mind. It is incredibly creepy with a disquieting ending. Luckily the second story, A Haunted House of Her Own, changed my mind with its rather Twilight Zone form of justice. Two of the stories are set in Ms Armstrong’s Cainsville world, Nos Galan Gaeaf and The Scream of Dragons, which though they are set years apart have some overlapping characters and ones familiar from the series. Both hold the solutions those familiar with the series would expect but are just as, not creepy but satisfying to those who have not read any of the Cainsville series.  Sprinkled through the others we have werewolves meting out justice, a sprinkling of ghosts,  characters just trying to survive in a dystopian future, and a really, really creepy resurrection story in Suffer the Children along with several twists where the “monster” is not who we would suspect. All in all I really enjoyed,  maybe that is not quite the right word, I really found myself drawn into each story and found myself by turns surprised at who the true villain was and feeling satisfied with each story’s conclusion.... except the first one, that one really creeped me out.  Highly recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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