Books › Trigger Warning
Trigger Warning
496 pages
A cabinet of curiosities that invites you to peek behind the masks of everyday life and confront the shadows lurking just out of sight.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like sitting around a campfire with a master storyteller as the woods grow dark and the wind begins to howl. The pace is steady and deliberate, allowing each tale to cast its own distinct, shadowy spell. It is a deeply atmospheric experience, shifting seamlessly from wry whimsy to profound, unsettling dread. The prose is deceptively conversational, lulling you into a false sense of security before revealing the sharp teeth hidden within modern fairy tales and ghostly encounters. It explores the fragile masks we wear and the quiet vulnerabilities we hide from the world. This is a book for those who find beauty in the macabre and comfort in the eerie, lingering long after the final page is turned.
- Mood
- shadowy
- unsettling
- dreamlike
- wistful
- Tone
- wry
- melancholic
- eerie
- introspective
- whimsical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the masks we wear · hidden vulnerabilities · the nature of death · power of storytelling · childhood fears
- The writing
- Lyrical, conversational, and deceptively simple, weaving dark magic into everyday observations.
- The arc
- Moves from a sense of familiar comfort into sudden, chilling unease, ultimately settling into a quiet, lingering melancholy.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love modern fairy tales with sharp teeth and those who find comfort in the shadows of the imagination.
Content notes
- death and dying
- mild horror
- grief
- existential dread
About the book
This third collection of short fiction by Gaiman includes previously published pieces of short fiction -- stories, verse, and a Doctor Who story written for the series' fiftieth anniversary (Nothing o'clock). There is also "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of his novel American Gods. The collection explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story -- a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane -- Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year -- stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness.
Description from Open Library.
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