Allyson Bird

I mostly enjoyed this series of short stories, although it did take me a couple to get into the mood for them: I found that the first ones were too short, with a rather cliché ending and I feared that the rest would be the same.

Luckily, that was not the case, and there were a few where the author managed to create a spooky ambiance without resorting to obvious tricks, in particular Shadow upon Shadow and Silence is Golden, which were fun, creepy reads. I would have preferred less gore, but show more it wasn't so vulgar that it ruined the story for me.
I also enjoyed that Bird chose her ghouls from Antiquity and old legends. It sometimes felt a bit academic, but I did learn from whence the first vampire came - a nice piece of trivia since I do occasionally indulge in vampire literature!

The writing is strong and consistent. I would like, overall, to have seen a bit more originality and character development to really get into a more psychological scare. Definitely potential. show less

I received this book as an Early Reviewer copy, and regret to say that I won't be buying any of her books. I like horror stories, I really do, but I found these stories to be so bleak that I couldn't even finish the book. I got just over halfway through the book but then as I started the next story I found that I just did not want to find out what awful thing would happen this time. Most of the stories ended quite abruptly and some of them were confused -- but the one word that sums them up show more is bleak. show less

This was a really excellent book of short stories that offer a unique alternate world perspective on normal everyday life. The characters are well written and the plots are well developed.. The stories are like candy - just enough to make a rabid reader happy without being overly long.

Bull Running for Girls is full of wonderful, frightening, moving ideas and images. Bird has a great mind for scene and situations, and great strong women characters. I look forward to seeing more of her later work, as I feel this collection was just missing polish. Great potential for future weird and horror writing.