This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Reviewed by Dan M. Kalin for Readers' Favorite
Abhorrent is a collection of horror stories written by Michelle Merz. Each short story requires only a few minutes to read, perfect for short breaks or any time when longer periods aren't available. The stories run from tales of the supernatural to those of purely human monsters. One story, Emergency, spans five shorter tales before finally wrapping things up. Stories include nightmares within dreams, schoolgirl invocations, itches which demand scratching, fancy dinner parties, unlikely snuff video fans, aspects of working 911, rubber ducky games, crowds of creepy children, and one more thing to worry about when handing your keys to a parking valet. As far as could be readily determined, no pets were killed off in any of the stories.
I found Michelle Merz to have an excellent touch when creating her Abhorrent stories; tension is built appropriately, the compressed story arcs are executed smoothly, characters are remarkably well rounded and vivid for short or flash fiction pieces. In addition most of the stories have endings you definitely will not see coming. My favorite story is Dinner which, in my opinion, is the exemplar of those aspects. If you've ever had a hard-to-reach itch, your skin might start to crawl reading Itch/Scratch; I know mine did. All of the sub-stories in Emergency are strong alone and again the global ending came as a delightfully macabre surprise. I don't know how many more of these stories Michelle Merz has in her catalog but, based on the strength of Abhorrent, I would eagerly read them as well.