A solid collection of effective horror.

"Dark Tales" gathers four of J.D. Allen's previously-published novellas into a single volume for an experience that's a bit beefier and more diverse than your typical horror tome.

I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, with "Tombstones" and "Silver Sky" being the clear standouts for me, but "Can Susan Come Out and Play?" and, to a lesser extent, "Conjoined" still proved to be interesting, entertaining, and worthwhile reads.

There were a few things I didn't love about the experience, such as techniques like foreshadowing and repetition being used more often than I would have preferred, but my overall takeaway was that my time with "Dark Tales" was time well spent.

Since each of these stories is available separately, here are my individual ratings for them but don't let that discourage you from giving the collection a try as you may find its individual components more or less to your own taste.

Conjoined - 3.25

Silver Sky - 4

Tombstones - 4.5

Can Susan Come Out and Play? - 3.75

Overall, I'm giving "Dark Tales" a 4.25, rounded up so as not to underrate it.