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Burrows of Blood and Shadow
The dreamers dream all the time, free to go anywhere, to be anything, to see worlds outside themselves, inside themselves and beyond themselves. The Dream Surfer has no past or memory and can only experience life through the dreams and memories of others. He is stuck in a world of doors and windows leading to quiet lives, where pain and tragedy flow like the inevitable path of gentle streams. There is one spot he refuses to go, a dank corner where burrows dive down to dark and brutal depths.
He yearns to break free of his cage and create an existence of his own. But nothing he's done so far has brought him closer to freedom. Maybe the key to escape lies where he has so far feared to tread. The Dream Surfer takes the plunge into the depths of the burrows, where he will travel the turbulent current of pain and cruelty intersecting through various narratives. Will this give him the freedom he craves? Or is it just a way to add more chains?
Thirty-seven tales weave together to shape multiple plots, some which dig into literal flesh, while others rip at the flesh of the mind. Neither guilty or innocent, young or old, are safe in this twisting path of mental and physical horrors.
He yearns to break free of his cage and create an existence of his own. But nothing he's done so far has brought him closer to freedom. Maybe the key to escape lies where he has so far feared to tread. The Dream Surfer takes the plunge into the depths of the burrows, where he will travel the turbulent current of pain and cruelty intersecting through various narratives. Will this give him the freedom he craves? Or is it just a way to add more chains?
Thirty-seven tales weave together to shape multiple plots, some which dig into literal flesh, while others rip at the flesh of the mind. Neither guilty or innocent, young or old, are safe in this twisting path of mental and physical horrors.
- GenresHorror
238 pages, Paperback
Published October 28, 2022
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 3, 2023
4 stars book for me!
It's a book composed of short horror stories that I think are great. The author's descriptions are just enough to know what is happening without veering into obscene detail, and there's a variety of types of supernatural horror in this little book - which I appreciate, sticking throughout one specific horror theme could get old but here we rarely know what we will get next.
There are also humorous short stories that did give me some mood whiplash at times but also stops the book from being too gloomy. A bit of funny to contrast the horror (don't misunderstand however. The implications of these are no less horror themed than the rest.)
Now the Dream Surfer, the being that the reader is following in the journey, is trying to discover more about themselves by going through these memory burrows (and this is quite literal. Each burrow is 'decorated' in a way as to hint to the story which is a nice detail), looking through the horrors humans go through - or are the cause of. They are the connecting thread from the beginning through all these stories.
I think there was a bit of a miss with their specific part. As readers we know their thoughts of each burrow but I think something more was necessary before the ending.
All in all, a solid horror book.
Ebook was obtained from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
It's a book composed of short horror stories that I think are great. The author's descriptions are just enough to know what is happening without veering into obscene detail, and there's a variety of types of supernatural horror in this little book - which I appreciate, sticking throughout one specific horror theme could get old but here we rarely know what we will get next.
There are also humorous short stories that did give me some mood whiplash at times but also stops the book from being too gloomy. A bit of funny to contrast the horror (don't misunderstand however. The implications of these are no less horror themed than the rest.)
Now the Dream Surfer, the being that the reader is following in the journey, is trying to discover more about themselves by going through these memory burrows (and this is quite literal. Each burrow is 'decorated' in a way as to hint to the story which is a nice detail), looking through the horrors humans go through - or are the cause of. They are the connecting thread from the beginning through all these stories.
I think there was a bit of a miss with their specific part. As readers we know their thoughts of each burrow but I think something more was necessary before the ending.
All in all, a solid horror book.
Ebook was obtained from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
October 8, 2023
Burrows of Blood and Shadow is an intriguing collection of short horror stories that veer heavily towards body horror, succeeding effortlessly in inciting dread. Webb has an incredibly creative mind and I was blown away by the sheer variety of narratives and characters presented in this collection. unfortunately, this had its strengths and weaknesses.
Sadly, I did feel that, for most of the book, its shortcomings outweighed its strong points: for starters, I felt that the prose sounded, at times, pretty juvenile and, though this worked perfectly for chapters with younger narrators, the same writing style absolutely did not match the more adult tones of some others. Secondly, I felt that, for such a short book, thirty-seven stories—whilst a certainly impressive feat—were way too many as most of them felt rushed or repetitive to a certain degree and the text as a whole felt incohesive and chaotic. Webb attempts to mellow this feeling through the character of the Dream Surfer, who physically moves through every tale and, at the end of each one, acts as a sort of virgilian guide, intent on leading you by the hand by summarizing and expounding the (surface level) moral philosophy of each “fable”.
Similarly, because of the vast array of stories, the mountainous selection of characters felt overwhelming and a good number of personalities felt more similar to caricatures (the misogynistic hunter, the perfect family etc) than believable people. This was certainly a testament to the author’s creative prowess, and I commend them for it, but, regrettably, I did not find many of these dramatis personae congenial and, in a text centered around people’s stories, that certainly took a lot of the enjoyment away.
Still, Webb gave life to many compelling narratives (haunted and mercy of a monster being my favorites) that have slight Ray Bradbury vibes and for that I definitely recommend that anyone interested in this genre check it out.
ARC provided by NetGalley and Rebekah L. Webb in exchange for an honest review
“He wanted to be real, to feel his own feelings and share his own joys, not just taste the dreams and memories of others. Maybe, just maybe, the only reason he could never break free from this prison of nothingness was because he only ever experienced the pleasure of the world and not the pain.”
Sadly, I did feel that, for most of the book, its shortcomings outweighed its strong points: for starters, I felt that the prose sounded, at times, pretty juvenile and, though this worked perfectly for chapters with younger narrators, the same writing style absolutely did not match the more adult tones of some others. Secondly, I felt that, for such a short book, thirty-seven stories—whilst a certainly impressive feat—were way too many as most of them felt rushed or repetitive to a certain degree and the text as a whole felt incohesive and chaotic. Webb attempts to mellow this feeling through the character of the Dream Surfer, who physically moves through every tale and, at the end of each one, acts as a sort of virgilian guide, intent on leading you by the hand by summarizing and expounding the (surface level) moral philosophy of each “fable”.
Similarly, because of the vast array of stories, the mountainous selection of characters felt overwhelming and a good number of personalities felt more similar to caricatures (the misogynistic hunter, the perfect family etc) than believable people. This was certainly a testament to the author’s creative prowess, and I commend them for it, but, regrettably, I did not find many of these dramatis personae congenial and, in a text centered around people’s stories, that certainly took a lot of the enjoyment away.
Still, Webb gave life to many compelling narratives (haunted and mercy of a monster being my favorites) that have slight Ray Bradbury vibes and for that I definitely recommend that anyone interested in this genre check it out.
ARC provided by NetGalley and Rebekah L. Webb in exchange for an honest review
“He wanted to be real, to feel his own feelings and share his own joys, not just taste the dreams and memories of others. Maybe, just maybe, the only reason he could never break free from this prison of nothingness was because he only ever experienced the pleasure of the world and not the pain.”
April 3, 2023
Dreams are one of my favourite topics, especially in a horror story. With this being the primary draw of the book, as well as its tying concept - that being the idea of a 'Dream Surfer' who moves between the dreams of different people - I had a lot of interest in and excitement for this book. Unfortunately, it didn't quite deliver.
To be clear, this is a good short story collection. There are some interesting ideas, especially the Dream Surfer himself, and his species, the Grend. There is a lot of variety to the stories in this collection, drawing from a broad set of influences and involving pretty much every subgenre of horror you could think of. It left me wanting more, which can only be a good thing.
However, I did have a lot of issues that dampened my enjoyment of and interest in this collection. In short, the name of the game here is a severe issue with being underdeveloped.
186 pages for 37 stories (38 if including the tying concept) is simply too many stories spread over too short a page count. In the same way, the story of the Dream Surfer felt like it was only present for exposition, appearing at the end of each story to simplistically explain whatever story I had just read. On top of this, the adolescent prose jarred against some of the darker and more brutal narratives. This prose style worked for the more younger, humorous stories included here, but in the end it seemed there was a great amount of disparity, a disparity that could have worked well, but again, it was severely underdeveloped.
On a more personal level, I also had an issue with the fact that, before long, the stories stopped resembling dreams at all. Considering the dreams and Dream Surfer being the most interesting part for me, and the lack of a core concept to the collection as a whole, this left me really disappointed.
All this said, the collection was entertaining, and interesting enough to hold my attention. Either the author should have cut down the number of stories, given each one a greater page count, or perhaps even both. In short, the story needed to be significantly more developed, in every single way. Regardless, I would still recommend this collection to anyone looking for an entertaining, easy to read short story collection with a lot of variety.
[Advanced Reader Copy provided by the author.]
To be clear, this is a good short story collection. There are some interesting ideas, especially the Dream Surfer himself, and his species, the Grend. There is a lot of variety to the stories in this collection, drawing from a broad set of influences and involving pretty much every subgenre of horror you could think of. It left me wanting more, which can only be a good thing.
However, I did have a lot of issues that dampened my enjoyment of and interest in this collection. In short, the name of the game here is a severe issue with being underdeveloped.
186 pages for 37 stories (38 if including the tying concept) is simply too many stories spread over too short a page count. In the same way, the story of the Dream Surfer felt like it was only present for exposition, appearing at the end of each story to simplistically explain whatever story I had just read. On top of this, the adolescent prose jarred against some of the darker and more brutal narratives. This prose style worked for the more younger, humorous stories included here, but in the end it seemed there was a great amount of disparity, a disparity that could have worked well, but again, it was severely underdeveloped.
On a more personal level, I also had an issue with the fact that, before long, the stories stopped resembling dreams at all. Considering the dreams and Dream Surfer being the most interesting part for me, and the lack of a core concept to the collection as a whole, this left me really disappointed.
All this said, the collection was entertaining, and interesting enough to hold my attention. Either the author should have cut down the number of stories, given each one a greater page count, or perhaps even both. In short, the story needed to be significantly more developed, in every single way. Regardless, I would still recommend this collection to anyone looking for an entertaining, easy to read short story collection with a lot of variety.
[Advanced Reader Copy provided by the author.]
October 13, 2023
Burrows of Blood and Shadow is a collection of 37 short horror stories ranging from gore and body horror to deep phycological torture. The main character is the Dream Surfer- a being that exists in a realm outside of time only to experience life through the dreams of others. Wanting to understand more about it’s own existence and humanity, the Dream Surfer delves into the burrows- a place filled with the darkest nightmares and psychological torment.
Overall, the 37 stories were interesting- each one a different nightmare with underlying messages about the darkest parts of humanity. This book works very well as a short horror story collection and could be read on one spooky October evening. The short story layout and gory horror reminded me of Junji Ito’s horror collections- one of my favourite styles of horror! The structure of the book was also very good, it was interesting to see how the different narratives begun to weave together as the book went on.
Something that I personally think could be improved upon was the writing style and the voices of different characters. I feel that the writing style is intended for a much younger audience and not really adults, and it made all the different nightmares feel like they are told by the same person even though each one os supposed to be different. I also think the underlying messages for each story were made too obvious at the end because of the Dream Surfer explaining it. The story was put together well enough for these messages to be inferred by the reader so there was really no need for an explanation after each story, it became repetitive after a while. If the stories had been elaborated on a bit more I think it would really flesh out the book and make it flow more naturally than the story-message-story-message sort of thing.
Overall though, this was an enjoyable read (especially for spooky season) and I would definitely recommend it! I think younger readers (providing they are ok with gore) would particularly enjoy this book so definitely check it out!
Overall, the 37 stories were interesting- each one a different nightmare with underlying messages about the darkest parts of humanity. This book works very well as a short horror story collection and could be read on one spooky October evening. The short story layout and gory horror reminded me of Junji Ito’s horror collections- one of my favourite styles of horror! The structure of the book was also very good, it was interesting to see how the different narratives begun to weave together as the book went on.
Something that I personally think could be improved upon was the writing style and the voices of different characters. I feel that the writing style is intended for a much younger audience and not really adults, and it made all the different nightmares feel like they are told by the same person even though each one os supposed to be different. I also think the underlying messages for each story were made too obvious at the end because of the Dream Surfer explaining it. The story was put together well enough for these messages to be inferred by the reader so there was really no need for an explanation after each story, it became repetitive after a while. If the stories had been elaborated on a bit more I think it would really flesh out the book and make it flow more naturally than the story-message-story-message sort of thing.
Overall though, this was an enjoyable read (especially for spooky season) and I would definitely recommend it! I think younger readers (providing they are ok with gore) would particularly enjoy this book so definitely check it out!
April 30, 2024
The Dream Surfer experiences life through the creams and memories of others. He generally stays in the calmer minds, living quiet lives and ordinary dreams. Some minds are more like burrows into the dark. When he wants to break free of the life he lives, he decides the burrows into pain and madness are his way to freedom.
The opening chapter outlines the mechanics of the Dream Surfer's life, entering dreams through doorways that appear in the dark alleyway of wherever it is that he exists. Each chapter afterward outlines the dark and horrible dreams of the burrows, becoming short bursts of horror, gore, and misery for the characters as the Dream Surfer watches. He feels like he should be learning something from these stories, and soon we see that some of them are interconnected after all. Angels and demons are real in this world, with heaven and hell associated with the torments and pain meted out to the vulnerable victims. The ties between some of the stories seem to show there is a lesson involved, bloody justice meted out to those that tortured the innocent.
While most of the stories centered on pain and death, the Dream Surfer tries to figure out the deeper meaning behind them. There is humor, joy, and love after all, not just pain; he decides his life is going to be more than the darkness of the burrows. It's an interesting format but with too many unlikeable characters and many passive ones. Like the Dream Surfer, you'll have to take your own meaning out of the stories and figure out your own path forward.
The opening chapter outlines the mechanics of the Dream Surfer's life, entering dreams through doorways that appear in the dark alleyway of wherever it is that he exists. Each chapter afterward outlines the dark and horrible dreams of the burrows, becoming short bursts of horror, gore, and misery for the characters as the Dream Surfer watches. He feels like he should be learning something from these stories, and soon we see that some of them are interconnected after all. Angels and demons are real in this world, with heaven and hell associated with the torments and pain meted out to the vulnerable victims. The ties between some of the stories seem to show there is a lesson involved, bloody justice meted out to those that tortured the innocent.
While most of the stories centered on pain and death, the Dream Surfer tries to figure out the deeper meaning behind them. There is humor, joy, and love after all, not just pain; he decides his life is going to be more than the darkness of the burrows. It's an interesting format but with too many unlikeable characters and many passive ones. Like the Dream Surfer, you'll have to take your own meaning out of the stories and figure out your own path forward.
February 7, 2023
Burrows of Blood and Shadow centers around the Dream Surfer entering burrows of people's nightmares while trying to piece his past together. I love how it might look like a normal horror anthology at first, but the more nightmare hellscapes you visit with the Dream Surfer, the more you realise how interconnected they are. I think this is a very creative effort, what with the plot and the ideas of pain themselves, and I think it's well translated in this book.
The writing is well done, the environment of each burrow is very descriptive. There's also stories that were darkly funny, which is a nice break from all the cruelty, and I think the humor isn't overdone. My favourite nightmares were Dreams Do Come True, Raising Gina, Hidden, Sunshine, The Perfect Wife, A Cold Day in Hell, and Demon Justice.
I could've wished for some parts to be a little more detailed, especially near the 'climaxes' of the stories, because they went by so quickly that I barely even registered what happened. But otherwise I enjoyed reading this and I look forward to more people hearing about Burrows of Blood and Shadow :))
* ARC provided by NetGalley and Rebekah L. Webb in exchange for an honest review *
The writing is well done, the environment of each burrow is very descriptive. There's also stories that were darkly funny, which is a nice break from all the cruelty, and I think the humor isn't overdone. My favourite nightmares were Dreams Do Come True, Raising Gina, Hidden, Sunshine, The Perfect Wife, A Cold Day in Hell, and Demon Justice.
I could've wished for some parts to be a little more detailed, especially near the 'climaxes' of the stories, because they went by so quickly that I barely even registered what happened. But otherwise I enjoyed reading this and I look forward to more people hearing about Burrows of Blood and Shadow :))
* ARC provided by NetGalley and Rebekah L. Webb in exchange for an honest review *
April 2, 2023
I was impressed with the book's structure and story connections. The collection of tales flows together to create a haunting and cohesive narrative that draws you in from the very first page.
I would highly recommend Burrows of Blood and Sorrow to anyone who enjoys a good read. I was left wanting more and would be interested in reading more from Rebekah L. Webb. This book is a must-read for anyone who appreciates excellent storytelling!
One of the things that I loved about this book was how each burrow depicted the short story it was related to. This added a new level of creativity to the reading experience, as I found myself imagining and visualising the burrows in my mind. I was so inspired that I plan to work on drawing each of these burrows.
I want to take a moment to thank Netgalley and Rebekah L. Webb for the free copy I received in return for an honest review.
I would highly recommend Burrows of Blood and Sorrow to anyone who enjoys a good read. I was left wanting more and would be interested in reading more from Rebekah L. Webb. This book is a must-read for anyone who appreciates excellent storytelling!
One of the things that I loved about this book was how each burrow depicted the short story it was related to. This added a new level of creativity to the reading experience, as I found myself imagining and visualising the burrows in my mind. I was so inspired that I plan to work on drawing each of these burrows.
I want to take a moment to thank Netgalley and Rebekah L. Webb for the free copy I received in return for an honest review.
February 22, 2023
A brutal soul-searching take on a horror anthology. The very first story DREAM SURFER was my favorite, and then the surfer plunges into the darkest memories/dreams which gets really intensely violent really fast.
Following DREAM SURFER, there was a bit too much torture for my taste in the very next story. I would have liked to be eased in with some of the more spooky stories from the end of the book. Other than the abrupt change into torture and violence- I enjoyed the read. Lots of interesting stories and I enjoy feeling tons of emotions from stories that are only 2-4 pages. Shows how intensely good the writing is.
My favorite stories were: DREAM SURFER, THE COUNCIL, PLEASURE AND PAIN, CHASE, SUNSHINE, HAUNTED, THE PERFECT WIFE, A COLD DAY IN HELL, and FULL CIRCLE.
Following DREAM SURFER, there was a bit too much torture for my taste in the very next story. I would have liked to be eased in with some of the more spooky stories from the end of the book. Other than the abrupt change into torture and violence- I enjoyed the read. Lots of interesting stories and I enjoy feeling tons of emotions from stories that are only 2-4 pages. Shows how intensely good the writing is.
My favorite stories were: DREAM SURFER, THE COUNCIL, PLEASURE AND PAIN, CHASE, SUNSHINE, HAUNTED, THE PERFECT WIFE, A COLD DAY IN HELL, and FULL CIRCLE.
November 10, 2023
This is a unique collection of short stories that all have a common focus. The dream surfer has no life of his own and can only indulge in the dreams of others. This starts off more young adult but eventually does become more adult horror focused. I think the author would write some great fantasy style work! My favourite stories in this book were those that had creatures and kids in them! They were fun and well written and she had a lot of beautifully descriptive moments ! Check it out
March 8, 2023
Thanks netgallery for allowing me to read this book for my review.
I absolutely loved this book.
It's a collection of mostly short horror stories, some are extreme FYI! THAT are centered around dreams.
It was a hard to put down and really well written.
I absolutely loved this book.
It's a collection of mostly short horror stories, some are extreme FYI! THAT are centered around dreams.
It was a hard to put down and really well written.
February 15, 2023
Really cool cover and idea for a story but I had a hard time following it. Maybe I'm just a little dumb and it's not for me but I still think people should give it a chance.
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