Great captivating writing. One of the better short story collections and some of the best horror I’ve read in ages. Welch’s writing is gorgeous and these stories are fantastic. Welch has a way of writing these beautiful, delicate passages, and then suddenly hitting us with the cold, hard truth. It’s refreshing. I loved that there’s a very wide range of themes, though all were horror, there was a lot of variation in execution. It made every story feel new and fresh, and extra horrifying. You don’t know what you’re getting into, and I love it.
I definitely favor the longer stories, and I realized lately I tend to do that when it comes to most short story collections I read. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s just because they have more time to build and give me more time to get into it. An issue with these kind of collections (and I’m speaking generally here), is that the good will often overshadow the less good. That’s not to say that any of the stories in this book are bad, but I tend to subconsciously compare and rate them all. Meaning, I’ll pick out the few that I love that are really, really good, and then some necessarily end up at the bottom. I should probably try and stop doing this, but it’s not my fault that some of these stories are, really, really good.
I’ve read Welch before, and it strikes me how easily the story is transmitted. It’s like this is the only type of writing I’ve read my entire life and I know it inside out, and I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s brilliant, is all I can say. Welch as a way with words that pulls you in.
I’ll say it again that this is some of the better horror I’ve read in a while. I love horror, but I feel like I often don’t tend to find things as scary as others deem them to be (looking at you Carrie). Well, these definitely send chills down my back, and more than once!
I highly recommend that you go check out W.B. Welch and Blood Drops.
Trey Stone, Author 
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