Ghost Stories by Antara Roy O

A collection of seven spooky ghost stories that will make you think twice about going out after dark.

The Terrace starts off the book with a tale of two friends looking for somewhere private for a chat and a drink. In Game of Death, a young boy stumbles upon an apparition in the woods. The Girl by the Lake sees two friends meet a beautiful woman as they drive home for the weekend. Goat’s Leg is a nightmare journey for a young man on New Years Eve. A Friend in the Mountain is the story of two friends who travel to a village in the Himalayas for work, and hear the tale of a familiar young beauty. Room No 6 recounts the experience of a worker spending the night in a haunted bungalow. The last story in the collection is Look Behind, about a journey home and a welcoming committee that is not what it seems.

Written simply, with superb dialogue, there is an almost cinematic quality to Roy O’s writing. With a few lines, the reader is transported to India and immersed in the setting, watching the characters encounter their ghostly apparitions.

As with Catherine McCarthy’s collection, Door, each story was so engaging that I found it hard to believe I was reading fiction. Like all good ghost stories, you are reminded of tales recounted to you by friends and family members on dark nights.

My favorite story of the collection was Room No 6, with its creepy, yet tragic, encounter that left me wondering how I would have acted in such a position. Honorable mentions go to The Girl by the Lake and Look Behind, for the strong element of family that drew me deeper into the tales and made them more realistic for me.

It is both a curse and a blessing that Ghost Stories left me wanting more. While the tales are strong, there is something of the vignette about some of them, and it would have been nice if there had been a deeper layer to the collection. I look forward to reading more by this author.

I award Ghost Stories…

Ghost Stories is available for $2.10 ebook on Amazon.