From Mia Dalia, the author of Estate Sale, Haven, and other literary nightmares, comes a uniquely terrifying collection of dark psychological fiction, featuring novelettes and short stories that range from horror to suspense to mystery to coming-of-age to thrillers.

SMILE SO RED – a man finds a strange graffitied house in the woods and a smiling darkness that follows him home.

SPINDEL – a twelve-year-old boy suspects that one of the neighbours on his paper route might be a local serial killer and sets off to investigate.

BLUES FOR THE SOUL – a library worker tries to help a troubled young boy and uncovers a terrible truth about his family.

DEVIL’S CHORD – return to the world of Smile So Red with a meta journey set to the earworm tune of your worst nightmares.

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STUMP – a bullied young boy and a downtrodden family man from the same apartment complex unwittingly entrust their secrets to the same remnant of an old tree in the local woods.

FLAMINGOS – two sisters must confront their troubled past when a buried memory is triggered by the seemingly innocuous plastic lawn birds.

THE TRUNK – striving to achieve the American Dream, a first-generation immigrant from a war-torn country buys a new home and finds something in the basement that has other ideas for him.

REDDEST – another return to the world of Smile So Red, albeit from a very different perspective.

Go on. Turn the page. Pick a nightmare. I dare you.

My Review

Smile So Red was really good but not my usual genre as I don’t normally read stories about supernatural monsters and demons. It was all very creepy and I did enjoy the twist at the end.

However, I loved Spindel in which 12-year-old Johnny Walker is convinced that the local bank manager Karl Spindel has abducted three girls and probably murdered them. We also hear from Amanda, the third girl to be taken, and the on-off girlfriend of Johnny’s brother Beau. It’s all very scary and no-one believes Johnny that Mr Spindel is the kidnapper. Well, we shall have to see. I think this was one of my favourites.

I did like Blues For The Soul but even though it was quite nasty, I actually found it really sad. I felt sad for widowed librarian Martha, and singer Dana, and even for Dana’s son Darren who didn’t ask to be born evil – the spawn of the devil. This was another favourite joint with Spindel.

In The Devil’s Chord four horror fans visit the house in the woods from Smile So Red, but the narrator can’t get the ‘devil’s chord’ out of his head. It’s like an earworm. It was banned by churches worldwide. What will it make him do? Very creepy and scary.

Stump is probably my least favourite. It revolves around Tobey, bullied at school, and parents who don’t seem to care much. He finds solace in the woods where he discovers an old tree stump. Then we have Finn, who has just had a baby with wife Jenny. He hates his job, his boss and doesn’t much like his family. He was awful! But who will take revenge?

Flamingos was also one of my favourites. It’s different from the others. Chrys has moved to a lovely new apartment away from the city and her sister Kayla. There are plastic flamingos in the garden, but why do they appear to move at night and have red beaks? It’s freaking her out until she discovers why. I Loved this one.

In The Trunk Bogdan has come to America from an unspecified war zone. Life is good. Ten years with wife Aimee and finally they have bought their own apartment. But the trunk in the basement is calling to him and reminding him of his past. Just how sinister can it get? Very.

Reddest takes us back to Smile So Red. A man sees graffiti which ‘decorated the embankments of the river’. Then he sees the smile – ‘madness beyond the swirls of colour’. The reddest smile he had ever seen. So he searches for the artist. Will he find him? And will he regret it if he does?

Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness is a great collection of short stories by a true connoisseur of the horror genre. I loved most of them, especially the three I picked out, some not so much as out of my comfort zone, and I don’t like anything that involves animals, demons or monsters. But that’s the whole thing with short stories – you won’t love them all.

Many thanks to @ZooloosBT  for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Mia Dalia is an internationally published, CWA-nominated author of all things fantastic, thrilling, scary, and strange.

Her short fiction has been published online by Night Terror Novels, 50-word stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Pyre Magazine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, carte blanche magazine, Jaded Ibis Press, Weird Wide Web; in print anthologies by Sunbury Press, HellBound Press, Black Ink Fiction, Dragon’s Roost Press, Unsettling Reads, Phobica Books, PsychoToxin Press, Wandering Wave Press, rebellionLIT Press, Bullet Points, Critical Blast, Off-Topic Publishing, Exploding Head Press, Sinister Smile Press, Dracula Beyond Stoker Magazine, Mystery Magazine, Headshot Press, Nightshade Press, WonderBird Press; Crystal Lake Publishing, Grendel Press, and more, and featured in narrative podcasts such as Zoetic Press’ Alphanumeric, Sudden Fictions, and Tales to Terrify.

Mia’s work has been selected as Tales to Terrify’s top ten best stories of 2023, shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association’s Daggers Award 2024, and praised by authors and editors such as Michael Marshall Smith- “One of the best novels I’ve read in years”, Stephen Jones – “horror tour-de-force”, Clay McLeod Chapman – “every flip of the page leads its readers deeper into uneasy dream”, Neil Sharpson, M.R. Carey, A.C. Wise, Ian Rogers, Edward Ashton, and institutions such as Booklist’s Starred Review: “Beautifully detailed characters and a subtle slide into dread…”

Her full-length works include the novels Estate Sale and Have (CamCat Books) and the novellas Tell Me a Story and Discordant (Anuci Press); Arrokoth, and Do You Know The Muffin Man? (Spaceboy Books).

Her upcoming work will be featured by PS Publishing, Crystal Lake Publishing, Dark Matter INK, Absinthe Press, Earthling Publications, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and more.

Where can you find them?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/read.daliaverse/
Website: https://daliaverse.wixsite.com/author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daliaverse/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/Dalia_Verse

Book Links
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com
Purchase Link: www.amazon.co.uk