They Move Below – Karl Drinkwater

It exists under the earth’s surface in ancient caves; below the vast sea’s undulating waves; under dense forest cover; within a storm’s thick, rolling clouds; downstairs in our homes, when we hear the knife drawer rattle in the night. Even our minds and bodies harbour the alien under the skin, the childhood nightmares in our subconscious.

In this collection of sixteen tales Karl Drinkwater sews flesh onto the bones of our worst fears whilst revisiting some of horror’s classic settings, such as the teen party, the boat in trouble, the thing in the cellar, the haunted museum, the ghost in the machine, and the urban legends that come true. No-one is safe. Darkness hides things, no matter how much we strain our eyes. And sometimes those things are looking back at us.

 

My thanks to Karl for the opportunity to join the blog tour for They Move Below

If you look through the archives of my blog you will notice an absence of short story collections. I rarely read them. If I *do* read short stories then it is virtually guaranteed to be a collection of ghost stories or horror tales. So when I was offered the opportunity to join the blog tour for They Move Below I jumped at the chance.

I first encountered Karl’s work when my friend Sarah (By The Letter Book Reviews) shared her review of Harvest Festival. I loved the sound of the story so made a quick trip to the Amazon Kindle Store and was not disappointed.  You can see my review here. I loved Harvest Festival and it made me want to read more (more from Karl and also more ‘creepy’ stories). They Move Below was the natural next purchase.

Sixteen stories in one volume and chills guaranteed.  The aforementioned Harvest Festival is one of the stories and is still one of my favourites (I read it again). I also really liked a story called Creeping Jesus – think Disney’s Night at the Museum with an 18 certificate!

I am not going to run through each tale and single out the high points (plus I am saving a few stories for later so have 4 or 5 still to enjoy). What I can confirm is that They Move Below is a great collection of dark tales. Nobody is guaranteed to come through a story unscathed, and there was enough variety in the scenarios that I was able to read through more than one story in a single sitting and still think each new tale felt fresh.

Mr Drinkwater has a delightfully warped imagination. A couple of the twists and shocks were quite perturbing (in a good way) and by the time I had read a few of the stories I began to speculate what may be coming next. My eye immediately fell to a story called The Scissor Man – in a collection of horror stories that sounded particularly unpleasant!

A collection I absolutely recommend to horror fans. Now if you will excuse me it is late and I need to go and turn on all the lights…

 

You can order They Move Below & Other Dark Tales by clicking through the following link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B006JZWOPE/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=Karl+Drinkwater&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Karl+Drinkwater&sort=relevancerank