Darlings of Decay by Tamara Rose Blodgett

Darlings of Decay Reviews

• 
  Chris Haught

  What more can I say? OUTSTANDING! I can't put it down. Each story is amazing. 30 of the top female authors of the genre all together in one incredible book. It's FREE, let me say it again, FREE! I personally want to thank each and every author for giving this to us. I just added many new authors to my fave list.
• 
  Eleanor

  Loved Annie Walls Chapter in this book. Controlling the Dead tells Mac's Story. If you haven't checked out her first book the series, "Taking on the Dead" You should really check it out.
• 
  Victor *The North Remembers*

  The Zombie genre has been done to death and back... but it's still one of my favorites. Every now and then you get lucky and an author comes along with a different take or perspective and breathes new life into a stale story. If we're really lucky, the author delivers a great story via that new perspective.
  
  This anthology had a few stories that had us looking at zombies and the apocalypse in a new light. Which I think is to be expected when you gather up these many writers because - virus, outbreak, head to the mall to gather supplies would get tiring very quickly. Sadly the majority of the stories failed at delivering a great story. First off, some of these were short stories and others were just ads to get you to buy the full novel (not cool). Some of the unique perspectives were wasted while a couple could easily be full novels.
  
  Some characters were flat and unremarkable and the stories followed suit. Some authors tried too hard - to be funny and I don't know the writing felt, off.
  
  I enjoyed a handful - the ones I remember:
  
  What Zombies Fear by Laura Bretz
  Bob by Tonia Brown
  Eva Wilde Vs The Zombie Apocalypse* by Jen Marie Wilde *nothing unique here but a nice book to end the anthology.
  
  There was least one more that I enjoyed but the title escapes me.
  
  I hate DNFing books and I didn't come close with this one, but man I had to turn the "time left to finish book" counter on the bottom of my Kindle Fire off because it was depressing me. There was a chapter that was going to take me over three hours to finish, wait, what? Three hours?!? You'd think I was reading backwards.
  
  After all this mudslinging I still recommend this if you love the genre. I mean, we're talking zombies here :) Read one story a week in between books or when you're in a slump. Some of these stories will have you running to a good novel in a heartbeat.
• 
  Joline Novy

  Wow! Wow! WOW!! This was an absolutely FANTASTIC anthology!! I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading books about zombies and/or the zombie apocalypse! There are many many great stories in this book. Some are as short as 2 pages while some are full length first installments. While I do have my favorites, there's no way I could pick one story I liked the most. When I heard about this project and saw some of the authors that were submitting stories, I was so excited about this coming out. Not only did I really enjoy what I read by the familiar writers, I found some new wonderful authors to follow as well!! I am not disappointed at all with this anthology!! Well done ladies!!
• 
  Mia Darien

  This is a lot of zombie apocalypse in one place! There are too many stories for me to review individually (at least and keep my head from breaking), but over all, a pretty cool anthology for the z-apoc lovers out there. But what the heck is that Mia Darien chick doing in there? :P
• 
  Jeff Vandivor

  In a world where the zombie anthology well is scraping the extremes of low, and finding a good one I have not read or do not already own that isn't mostly garbage has become a daunting hunt, "Darlings of Decay" smashes the tedium with a sleek and refreshing fucking sledgehammer. Paradigms be damned, this isn't a book of good zombie stories by women; this is a perspicaciously engaging and original collection of stories by great authors, regardless of gender. "What zombies fear" was my favorite, incase anyone is wondering, but the entire book is not to be missed.
• 
  Katya

  It seems like I'm going against the current here, but... this was a really hard read for me. A couple of stories were absolutely outstanding but the majority felt like they'd actually been written by zombies.
• 
  Monica

  Love zombies!
• 
  Jacqueline Loudan weister

  Awesome book! I read it in one day I could not put it down. I recommend this book it took me a while to get to it as I was behind in my reading but as they say you save the BEST for last. A few of my favorite authors are in this book and I also added a lot more to check out once I Finish a few more books.
• 
  Jently

  2 stars, NOT because of the quality of the writing, but because I thought the blurb was misleading. Many of the "short stories" in here aren't really stand alone shorts, they are teasers. I don't mind short story bundles intended to help bring notice to full length books, this was just too much of too little. Some of them did seem interesting but I think several smaller bundles with slightly more story would have done better for getting the authors visibility.
• 
  Thomas

  It's very hard to rate a book like this. On one hand some of the stories were amazing, on the other... well, there's a zombie werewolf vampire demon. I'm incredibly sick of zombies, at least for the moment.
• 
  Tammy K.

  I am shelving this as a DNF at 42%.
  There are a couple interesting stories, but not enough to push through to the end of the book.
• 
  Kym Hewick

  For a free book this was freakin awesome! Have discovered some new authors I am really keen to read more of.
• 
  Cyber Killer

  I usually treat anthologies as samplers of different authors, though I like when they include completely new works, specifically written for that anthology. This is not the case here - nearly all the included works have been published before, so there's nothing new for fans of he genre who read it all.
  
  There are some great stories/novels here (like Annie Walls' companion story to her Famished series) and some outright bad ones (e.g. the paranormal romance with part werewolf part zombie part wampire with healing blood and a part demonspawn on top of that protagonist - damn! 8-/ ), overall the whole selection is quite good. I have one serious criticism though - including samples of novels which are cut at some point with a message "buy the book to read more" is really a no-go for me. I mean, seriously, this is an anthology of complete works, not a sales catalogue - sadly there are a couple (~5?) of works included this way inside :-(.
  
  Overall I recommend this book, though it might be a bit too much zombies for some people if read in one go. I know I need some proper break from zombie fiction for a while myself :-).
• 
  angie

  I've not read enough yet into Darlings to write a decent review, but I will say this: so far I'm very impressed. In this anthology you will find lots of different approaches to the zombie fiction genre. Of particular greatness is Laura Bretz's "The Ballad Of Ryan Fullerton" and Tonia Brown's "Bob." I expect there will be more to mention as I go along. :)
  
  One thing I really like about anthologies (especially great ones like this that you like to draw out because you're afraid it will end too soon) is that you can read one or two stories at a time and then go back to reading novels or non-fiction as well.
• 
  Denise Keef

  This is an awesome collection of zombie stories by some of the most amazing authors! There is a little something for everyone in here to like. I follow a few of the authors in here…Catt Dahman, Tonia Brown and C.A. Verstrate so I knew this had to be a great book. I have also now found quite a few others to now follow. The good thing about collections like this is you get a taste of other authors writing that you might not have heard about and then fall in love with their stories. This is one book that I would highly recommend to all the zombie lovers out there who are looking for a good read! Thank you ladies for such great entertainment and I look forward to reading more by all of you!
• 
  Patrick D'Orazio

  Darlings of Decay is an anthology of zombie shorts and novellas written by female authors. Often, the standard point made in a review of an anthology is that it is a mixed bag; good, bad, and so-so tales populate a book filled with a wide assortment of authors, whether the theme is specific or open ended. Such is the case with this book, though for not entirely for the standard reasons. This isn’t a book filled with short stories that are all within a certain size range or even stories that are all complete. Instead, it is a mix of shorts, novellas, and primers, for lack of a better term, from an assortment of authors offering up their take on the zombie apocalypse.
  It wouldn’t be altogether fair to be critical of an author whose contribution is more of a primer rather than a whole story. Unfortunately, stunted tales like those do leave something to be desired. Granted, it is an attempt to lure the reader to the author’s completed work outside of the anthology, but they left me a bit frustrated at the sudden start and abrupt endings. There were also a small group of novellas that felt rather expansive for such a book. They were not necessarily primers, but were parts of larger works with bigger tales to tale, thus once again leaving things open ended unless the reader chooses to seek out the rest of the author’s work.
  Darlings of Decay did offer up quite a few short stories that were not hints at bigger tales and some were noteworthy. Chantal Boudreau, Tonia Brown, Catt Dahman, Lori R. Lopez, and Suzanne Robb all contributed some very entertaining short stories to this work. As to whetting my appetite for something beyond the pages of this book, Jackie Druga’s “Zombie Battle” had a world building, epic quality to it that made me curious to see where the story would be heading after it cut off here.
  Focusing on the quality of the stories, it was indeed a mix of well written, sharply creative tales and dull plodders that were predictable from start to finish. It was clear that each author had to be responsible for their own editing, as there was no uniformity to each story on that score. Some were clean while quite a few were clogged with obvious typos and awkward phrasing that could have been addressed with a uniform editorial sweep.
  Treat this book as a sample platter and you will likely not be disappointed in what it has to offer. Nibble here and there-try the short stories and perhaps take a peek at the longer tales and decide whether what they have to offer are worth some bigger bites. Keep that in mind and you should come away satisfied that you have discovered a few new talented voices in the zombie genre that are worth seeking out further works from.
• 
  Rebecca

  I really enjoyed the snippets, chapters, and full blown novellas included in this anthology. It's fantastic, interesting, and I read quite a bit of new authors I hadn't read before that I am definitely going to be searching out more of.
  Some of it was pretty gross (but it's a ZOMBIE anthology) and I loved the fact that it was all written by women authors. While there were a few snippets that weren't my cup of tea and I skimmed through a bit, the majority of this is really interesting and I think anyone who loves zombie fiction will enjoy this book.
  It's free on Amazon, so you're really not going to lose out on anything. :)
• 
  Tamara

  Must Love Zs! What an awesome collection of zombies from some brilliantly talented rock star women horror writers! A massive collection too! Sure to keep you reading ... breathlessly ... through the last page. If the TOC alone isn't enough to hook your attention, the stories within definitely will! Grab a copy today - and let it grab you!
• 
  Glinda Harrison

  Excerpts and scenes are not short stories! They do not belong in an anthology. Very misleading. This is a shame because the quality of the writing seemed to be good. This was an exercise in frustration and not worth the time even though the book was free!
• 
  Sheena

  Like most anthologies, there will be stories you love and hate in them. This wasn't a bad bunch, but a few stories were so dull and/or stupid, it took a while to finish.
  
  Overall, not too bad if you like zombie stories.
• 
  Heidi

  some of these stories were great but I felt a few were just sections taken out of full stories.
• 
  Patti

  OMG! I can only say amazing.
• 
  Jessica

  A collection of "bits and pieces" of books. Some seemed interesting, some were crap. eh...
• 
  Dan

  got 15% into this and I can read no more. Never heard of any of these authors.Most are just bloggers who got picked for this shifty compilation.
• 
  Lord

  I am giving this book four stars because I have read books and known authors that I might have not read and known otherwise. :)
• 
  Lynsy

  This is written by various authors. Some wrote better than others. All - in - all, I liked it.
• 
  Tabitha Wilson

  I loved this book! Some parts made me freak out when i would hear bumps in the night while reading but i know that only a well written book could do that. Bravo to all the authors involved!
• 
  Gwennie Daley

  Thrilling
  
  Awesome compilation of stories! It took awhile to read but it was worth it. Nothing more scarier than having to fight just to survive. Very captivating!!