Bleeding Ink - A Collection of Dark Tales

I assumed Bleeding Ink was written entirely by Lisa Forget, Patricia Hollett, and Tammy Crosby, but instead there are many contributors, all of them members of Kelley Armstrong's Online Writing Group.

There's poetry. I'm not a fan of poetry, and these poems didn't work for me. There are vignettes/scenes - simply pieces of writing that aren't stories, as they're seemingly plot-less.

But there are proper short stories, of varying quality. My favourites:

-Phil Temples' Last Call
-Nicky Peacock's Bad Baby
-Maxwell Zwain's Deal with the Devil
-Christian A. Larsen's Club 27
-J. A. Campbell's Roses for the Devil

Nicky Peacock's Bad Baby is the best of them all, and I love it to bits. So relevant to my interests, and written well.

J. A. Campbell's Roses for the Devil could be expanded both before and after what happens in this tale.

One of my beefs with self-publishing is the lack of gatekeepers. Kelley Armstrong's Online Writing Group is actually a critique group, but in this collection I saw plenty of room for improvement: Scenes should've been rewritten as stories; some paragraphs should've been deleted at the beginnings to hook readers faster; and the lack of copyediting! For me, copyediting is the easiest part of critiquing, even without Microsoft Word which points out grammatical errors. Oh, and this is a finished edition of the anthology, via Smashwords. So if you purchase it, likely these errors won't have been corrected.

And then there are contributions that self-reference Bleeding Ink or the Ink Babes, or are about writers. That kind of stuff makes me cringe. Methinks this is a collection for writers, not readers. Either way, I can't recommend this book, though I do recommend the five short stories I name-checked earlier.

Great book with stories from a plethora of authors. Each story is unique and keeps you wanting more. Can't beat the price either.

Wonderful conception - fresh "meat", as it were. "Bleeding Ink Anthology" is a cornucopia of dark, twisted tales that will keep you awake in the dark, long after you've turned off your bedside light - all for the price of a cup of coffee. Serious bargain here, folks!!! Quick fix for all you horror junkies out there. Who hasn't got five minutes for a cosy blood-thirsty short story? These writers get right to the point, me hearties!! Be warned...heh, heh, heh.

When I first began reading this anthology, I was shocked at how many stories there were. But as I began reading I was happily surprised the different lengths of each story. Some where short but sweet while longer ones pulled me in. This is a great collections of Paranormal stories by some very talented Authors. I love all the different tales and ideas in this book. It was a fun and very enjoyable read. If you are thinking of picking I have to recomend that you do.

Loved the mix of poems, flash fiction and short stories. All creepy and wonderfully dark.

Delicious stories! A must read!