{Book Review} Someone To Share My Nightmares: Sonora Taylor

Someone To Share My Nightmares: Sonora Taylor

Reviewed By Steve Stred

Sonora Taylor has become a master of the short story over the last few years.

Between her anthology appearances and releasing her own collections, she’s crafted some of the darkest and most engaging stories that you’ll ever read.

Don’t believe me? Grab any anthology with her name listed and without question, her story will easily be in the top five, let alone challenging for the best in the table of contents.

And now, here she returns with another collection ‘Someone to Share My Nightmares: Stories.’

I was really excited to see what darkness she’d created and after reading V. Castro’s great foreword, I knew I was in for a treat.

What I liked: The collection opens with the title story, which follows Kristin as she laments the passing of her favorite director. She loves the darkness they create in the woods and when she meets Joshua, who was going to be working on the movie, they go to the forest where things get dark and brutal. It was great to see Sonora not hold anything back and go for the throat early in story number one.

Other standouts for me were ‘Bump in the Night’ which follows a woman calling for a plumber late at night, hoping for some extracurricular activity, only to deal with a haunted and angry house.

As well, ‘The Sharps’ was an excellent story, about Camila who goes to study the environment along a river, only to deal with unexpected metal creatures.

And the final story – ‘Tis Better to Want – was a dark, delicious slab of demon erotica. Lydia has a chance encounter with Krampus as a young girl and lusts for him from that day forward, until finally she gets a chance to couple with the horned beast. Excellent stuff.

Sonora definitely has created a signature style of telling her stories and you immediately know you’re in capable hands at the beginning of each tale.

What I didn’t like: As with each collection, some stories will connect while others may miss. I really liked ‘The Parrot’ and ‘Petal, Page, Piel,’ but found ‘Candy’ and ‘You Promised Me Forever’ were stories I typically wouldn’t seek out. Still great read, but wrong reader for the story.

Why you should buy this: As I said, Sonora has really become a ‘must-read’ writer for me and her short stories are always really well done and push the envelope of crafting a story and what the reader will expect. I had a blast reading these tales and I think it continues to cement her reputation as one of the best fiction writers out there.

Someone To Share My Nightmares

A band of bloodthirsty sea creatures terrorize a scientist and a journalist trapped in a Carolina cove. The seduction of a plumber making a house call becomes a nightmarish haunting for both parties. A woman transformed for her lover has second thoughts about just how good “together forever” can be. And the one man a woman wants for Christmas is the holiday demon sent to punish the wicked.

Someone to Share My Nightmares is a tapestry of horrors interwoven with sensuality. Can our deepest fears be vanquished when they’re shared with someone else? Or is the danger doubled when two people come together?

You can buy Someone To Share My Nightmares from Amazon UK & Amazon US

Steve Stred

Steve Stred writes dark, bleak fiction.

Steve is the author of a number of novels, novellas and collections.

He is proud to work with the Ladies of Horror Fiction to facilitate the Annual LOHF Writers Grant.

Steve has appeared alongside some of Horror’s heaviest hitters (Tim Lebbon, Gemma Amor, Adrian J. Walker, Ramsey Campbell) in some fantastic anthologies.