Monstrous Tales: Haunting encounters with Britain’s mythical beasts is a short story anthology set around the British Isles. Though I am not usually drawn to reading short stories, I prefer getting my teeth into a novella or full length novel, a few of the authors in this anthology caught my eye as I have read their work before and enjoyed their style immensely. This led me to reading more stories from the anthology and being fascinated with British mythology I’ve not encountered before. I feel this collection is a good one to dip in and out of, to read on cold nights. It will surely satisfy those looking for a short spooky read.

Below I will share mini reviews for a couple of the stories which I found to be really impressively done. 

“According to legend, Eynhallow is a place of intense mystery, steeped in folklore and ancient magic, even in the present day. It is a place where – according to locals – animals refuse to live, bad luck befalls inhabitants, tourists go missing, and ghosts can be found.”

Eynhallow Free by Sunyi Dean follows a young woman wrapped up in grief and guilt who has come to an island in Orkney with her husband. The island holds many mysteries and mythical stories surrounding its history but the woman must uncover and face her own past as well as whatever haunts the island. 

This was a fantastic story with a rather surprising dark ending. Dean is just fantastic at portraying messy, flawed and raw characters, the prose oozes with atmosphere and poignancy and the island is brought to life with such vivid descriptions. 

“Something cold and wet presses itself against my back.

It reeks of old bodies on a slab. Dirty hair falls across my cheek, dripping rainwater onto my jumper.

I stand perfectly still, too scared to move. Even if I could, those talons are digging into my shoulder, piercing my skin.

It sniffs me.”

Deaths in the Family by Stuart Turton tells the story of Ben who makes a deal that sees he and his family get their heart’s desire but at a cost. A debt must be paid, a soul must be sacrificed-someone must die. 

An action packed, intense and violently bloody story that just grips you throughout. Turton never fails to hook his readers and here he delivers an array of mythical monsters such as Black Annis and Redcaps which were truly horrifying. Of course there was also a killer twist! 

“The figure reached the edge of a precipice, stopped once more, turned and gestured him closer. He didn’t know how, he had not moved, but suddenly he was there, at the edge, looking down into a ravine, at the bottom of which lay the broken figure of a man.”

The Doctor’s Wife by Abir Mukherjee tells the story of Steven, a locum GP who moves with his wife Mel to Glentorrance to fill in for the previous doctor who suddenly left. Though the more he learns about his predecessor and his abrupt departure, the stranger things become.

Mukherjee’s punchy prose really works to set an uneasy atmosphere right from the beginning. The cottage the couple moved into is filled with strange paintings, a mountain and a faceless woman, and then the pair begin to have the same nightmares, over and over. The creepiness heightens and I enjoyed having a story that included Indian mythology onto a Scottish mountainside.  

“Then from the shadows he speaks her name in a voice like steel scraping rust from the air. A voice that seems to hang between familiar and imaginary worlds; Bessie is not even sure if she hears it on the outside of herself or if it is on the inside only. But it is both an acknowledgement and a question. What question?”

Mr Mischief by Rebecca Netley is the story of ten-year-old Bessie who moves with her uncle Kit, to Rowan’s Garth on the Yorkshire moors. Local legend there speak of Mr. Mischief, a boggart which local people leave offerings to in exchange for gifts from Mr Mischief. No one has ever seen this Boggart but his gifts are always gruesome and unsavoury. Yet Mr. Mischief may be exactly what Bessie needs to tackle the cruelty of her uncle.

Netley begins this story by painting a picture of the barren, isolated and lonely Yorkshire moors, igniting our senses. Bessie is such a lonely child, orphaned, homesick and missing the love and warmth of her grandma, so immediately I felt such empathy for her character. Then, as we discover just how her uncle frightens her, suddenly Mr Mischief doesn’t seem so much of a villain. That is until the ambiguous end! 

“Then the air was full of noise, a great roaring whoosh of sound. A rumble that started beyond, and became trapped in the breastbone, where it reverberated ill their blood shook. There was something with them; something behind them; something all around.”

The Beast of Bodmin by Jane Johnson centres on Gina, a young woman who after the death of her parents and the breakup of a boyfriend, starts a new life in a remote village in Cornwall. When her inherited cat Roxy goes missing, she seeks out the local villagers and so they have not seen Roxy, they do tell of the beast of Bogdin. Gina then becomes increasingly afraid of what may have happened to her poor old cat. 

This story was a bit more strange and unusual than the others that I have read. Johnson’s prose begins by being atmospheric but quickly turns quite metaphorical. Instead of being spooked, I actually appreciated the explorations of themes such as female empowerment, new beginnings and finding love. 

ARC provided by Abigail at Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange for an honest review—thank you for the copy! 

Monstrous Tales will be released 23rd October – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org