A Sliver of Darkness

Product Information

A reunion of old friends at a country house seems to offer sanctuary, but no one expects the darkness to hide in plain sight. If you enjoy short stories and the dark mind of this author, then I highly recommend giving it a read or listen. I find short story collections are either a hit or miss for me- this collection was absolutely a hit!

One thing I like about short stories is the freedom they give authors to jump straight into the narrative without spending time on scene-setting or backstory and in this collection of 11 macabre tales, CJ Tudor makes good use of that freedom. After all, “The Other Place” was an easy 5 star read for me, and two of her others earned 4 shiny stars! I’m desperately hoping to see a few of the stories included fleshed out into full novels in the future! The good news is that not only will there now be a different novel number five ("The Drift") being published in 2023, but there there is also the bonus of this volume of eleven short stories under the title, "A Sliver of Darkness" in the meantime. She firmly believes that there are no finer meals than takeaway pizza and champagne, or chips with curry sauce after a night out.A holiday village with a difference in Dust is another story I had to read twice just to make sure I’d picked up the nuances, and again that extra effort was worth it.

The Final Course is a story set a world where people are struggling to survive when darkness contains monsters that don’t have the grace to just stay under the bed. I would have liked to have had an entire book on this story - I had so many scenarios I wanted to see finished. She’s as hard-nosed as they come, but even she’s more than a little rattled by an encounter with a young girl in a motorway service station who asks her questions about things she couldn’t possibly have known. What I really liked it that each story featured an introduction from the author giving us insight into what inspired the tale.I have read quite a few short stories or story collections by various authors and often there are a fair number of bad stories in each but for me, this book contained nothing but good solid work. Story 2 | "The Block" - A group of kids break into an old abandoned warehouse and find something unsettling. Each story starts off with a bit of background on what gave the author the idea of the short story and I thought that was a really good touch. J. Tudor, the author provides a very personal glimpse into her life, with the passing of her dad, and the impact that it had on her and her writing. I'm so looking forward to reading my next book by this author and have really become a huge fan of her writing ability and style.

Personally, I have never gotten through a King novel or managed to sit through a television or film version of his work (it’s not polite to boo), so I can’t compare. The Block reminded me of Stranger Things but that could be I was reading as my husband was watching it? They are spooky, chilling, with elements of horror, the deranged, menacing and creepy, the bizarre, and on occasion, shot through with the darkest of humour. Gloria - A bad ass character you may have met before, an ode to 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦, and an ending that leaves you guessing! These eleven twisted tales of the macabre from the bestselling author of The Chalk Man and The Burning Girls are your perfect companions as the nights draw in .There was definitely a deeper meaning behind it of greed and honesty which could have been expanded on. The protagonist is Leila, an elderly woman reaching her 75th birthday, who lives on a cruising luxury liner for the last 50 years, following a climate disaster that demolished life as we know it. A pretty impressive first anthology from CJ Tudor, eleven stories (not sure why the blurb for the above cover says ten 🤔), and in my opinion, no duds, I was sorry when it ended!

If you are a fan of Stephen King, Kelly Link, or the horror or thriller genres, there is definitely something here for you. Dust – Villa de las Almas Perdidas in Gran Canaria is the place that Olivia has chosen to holiday to. J. Tudor's novels so far, I was alarmed by the news that the author lauded as "Britain's female Stephen King" was about to publish her first ever collection of short stories, in a compilation bearing the most applicable of titles, A Sliver of Darkness. There were a couple of other stories that leaned more to the horror side of things and those were not my favorite. Overall, I found this collection to be varied, unpredictable, well-written, engaging and it definitely gave me a lot to think about.I do best with short stories connected to a long series, probably because the world and characters are already developed. All of her books are in development or optioned for TV, and The Burning Girls debuted on Paramount Plus in 2023.