Good bones for a creepy, haunted house story, but it really needs to be developed into a full-length novel. ( )

I was super excited to stumble upon this Dark Corners collection of short stories by various authors via my Amazon Prime library (Amazon Original Stories.) I like that the stories are available individually on both my Kindle and Audible account. Oak Avenue was a great ending to this series. My favorite plot for a scary story is definitely a haunted house. A couple and their baby daughter move to the husband’s hometown and purchase an old mansion in desperate need of renovation. The wife struggles to be accepted by the locals while her husband works out of state during the week. Tension builds in their relationship as the house increasingly torments the family. ( )

Ana Clementine's husband buys an old victorian house in his hometown. He's dreamed of living in the house since he was just a boy. He even paid more than asking price for the run-down house. Ana moves in with her young daughter, and starts trying to make the old house a home. Strange things start happening almost immediately....and Ana realizes the old house harbors dark secrets.

Oak Avenue is the final story in the Amazon/Audible Dark Corners Collection....an anthology of seven darkly emotional stories written by bestselling authors. I'm reviewing each story on its own as they are novella length, and many of the authors are new to me.

I really enjoyed this story. Not many of the tales in the collection are actually horror....or even really scary in any way. This story definitely had the haunted, creepy house vibe to it from the start but morphed into a combination of horror and morality tale about the cycle of abuse. Loved it! Very well-written and enjoyable!

I listened to the audio book version of this story. The audio book is just over two hours long. Amy Landon does an amazing job narrating. She does a great job of building suspense and reads at a nice, even pace. All in all, Oak Avenue is one of the most enjoyable stories in the Dark Corners Collection, IMHO. ( )

House Haunting
Review of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook (Sept. 2018)

Fairly standard creepy old house haunting tale.

Oak Avenue is one of the 7 novellas included in the Dark Corners Collection, a series of suspense/horror fiction released September 27, 2018 by Amazon Prime. ( )

I read this short story on Amazon Prime in the Dark Corners collection. This was by far my favorite story in the collection, and also the one that is most "traditionally" horror, very much a haunted house story with all the trappings of such. It was unsettling to see the way everyone tried to sweep history under the rug and convince Ana everything was just in her head, and the changes in her husband throughout the story are deeply frightening. My only complaint would be the ending, because it really felt like the ending was rushed, as though Reeds forgot it was meant to be a short story and had to force it. I would love to see it expanded and made into a longer work, but I did enjoy it as it is now. ( )