Blood Ink by Colin Davies

 by Ashley Lister

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I have a particular fondness for short stories.  There’s something about the brevity that works well for me. Edgar Allan Poe, in The Philosophy of Composition, suggested that this brevity allowed the author to focus on a unity of effect; concentrating the scalpel of literature on a single emotional response.  Advocating the way this made poetry and short fiction impactful, Poe said, “there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art—the limit of a single sitting.”

Which is why I like to think of short stories as a superior art form.

And I mention all of this because I’ve recently read the new release of short stories, Blood Ink, from my good friend Colin Davies. Colin is a multi-talented author who has written a variety of titles. His latest release is a compilation of horror stories, all tied together by the conceit of narratives being pitched to a literary agent.

I’d describe these as fun stories but that’s probably because I enjoy the horror genre. I know that some of these stories have given readers nightmares and others have described this as Stephen King meets Black Mirror (which sounds like quite an unsettling combination). But I’d describe them as fun – the sort of horror stories that stretch the ‘what if…?’ boundaries of imagination and take daydreams to unexpected darkened avenues of experience.

Well worth reading.