Customer Reviews

Shivers

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Katherine Irving, in her book Shivers, leads you through a series of stories who's titles only give bare hints of the thrills and scares to come. I rarely get those feelings these days if I'm revisiting the tired and well-mined(in my opinion) format of the short-story genre. It's not that short stories in themselves are bad, it's that short stories are so often done poorly, the intent of the misguided author so often merely to try and throw you a curve at the story's end.

Thankfully, Irving doesn't fall into that trap. In the 23 stories in this book, she chooses to showcase not her cleverness but her imagination, in all its various forms. And they are various; using a plethora of locales, colorful and original characters, and circumstances, Irving pulls the reader effortlessly through the unsettling passageways of her mind. How rare it is to actually read a story these days and think to yourself, "How in the world did she come up with that?" and have it be a compliment!

The concept and emotion of love suffuses these stories in both obvious and subtle ways. Ms. Irving seems to have a lot to say on the subject, and does so without beating the reader over the head with her opinions.

A well crafted series of bedtime stories. If you don't mind sleeping with the lights on.

** Fear is a complex emotion. Evoking horror is not dependent upon the circumstances so much as upon how the circumstances are used. Drawing upon techniques mastered by Stephen Crane and Edgar Allen Poe, Ms Irving uses minutae to create a sense of dread from events not always fearful on the surface. Using everything from spiders to children, she tells tales to keep you up at night. Watch the shadow carefully, you never know what might lurk within them. **

Amanda Killgore

It's rare I sit down to devour a book these days. Life, and my own writing, has a way of sucking up the free time I used to spend reading. So when I do read a book, it better be worth my time.

Shivers was definitely worth my time. From story to story, Katherin Irving's prose and skillful use of metaphor kept me captivated enough to keep pushing the "next page" button on my PDA. Many of her tales have an underlying poignancy I found particularly appealing, and she has an amazing ability to create character's voices. I never had trouble differentiating or keeping track of her characters.

I have to respectfully disagree with the reviewer who posted that the overuse of "eyes" and "nowhere to hide" in the story Nowhere to Hide made it too long. It was that exact repetition that made the story so powerful and created such an understanding of the main character's mental state, which was incredibly important to the point of the story.

Katherine Irving's collection is one I'm sure I'll revisit many times. It was just that good. :)

A love couple encounters tragedy in the cruel, icy hands of winter. A prodigy violinist turns out to be an infamous serial killer. A mother's love knows no morals. In the jungles of the Amazon nature criminals will pay a high price. A brilliant scientist and her creation of baby embryos... crying to her from their frozen state...

This is a collection of disturbing stories that will unsettle your dreams and tease your sense of the bizarre.

Unhappy housewives who kill their husbands, evil cameras that make people disappear, lonely ghosts starving for human company, monsters in the pool, killer fish in the pond,
unusual migraines, cloning, not-quite-dead corpses in the morgue, a psychotic, sadistic murderer who finally gets a taste of his own medicine...

All these characters swirl together in a dark, unending vortex of evil.

Three stories particularly stand out in this collection: "Winter Souls," nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, "Warm Wet Kisses In E-Flat Minor," and "Itty-Bitty," winner of The First Annual Horror Authors Writing Contest.

I highly recommend this book to lovers of horror and the supernatural. In her distinctive and often darkly poetic style, Katherine Irving has woven a set of original, remarkable tales that will surely give you.... SHIVERS. A fine and rare talent.

By TT reviewer Sashaemillee Myhrom

What if Jack the Ripper had a family? What if shadows had minds of their own? What if a spider could be trained to kill? "Shivers" is an anthology of "what ifs" drawn from our darkest dreams. This fascinating collection, which preys upon both fears and sorrows, will have readers checking for monsters beneath the bed and sleeping with the light on...just in case.

Despite her spectacular imagination, author Katherine Irving's success as a storyteller is hindered by her misuse of several writing techniques. Ms. Irving's overuse of both metaphors and similes leaves the reader feeling overwhelmed and often confused. Adding to the confusion is the repetition of themes and particular phrases throughout the entirety of the book. Though in a few stories the use of repetition is an effective literary technique, in others it serves only to bore and tire the reader. In the story "Nowhere to Hide," repeated use of the word "eyes" and the phrase "nowhere to hide" adds unnecessary length to the story while not lending comprehension or suspense.

Characterization throughout the anthology is weak and unsupported. The majority of "Shivers" characters and narrators remain a mystery to the reader and result in weak storylines and loose ends. With the exception of a few stories, such as "Warm Wet Kisses In E-Flat Minor," in which the dual narration by both Jack and his sister Jane gives the reader a deeper understanding of the characters, "Shivers" presents little more than thin ghosts of personalities.

Ms. Irving's anthology might be better served by the removal of fully one-half of the stories, making room for the expansion of stories which desperately need more history than the author has put to page. What the book lacks in quality of style, it more than makes up for in creativity, but more complex characters set in a supported context would surely take "Shivers" from mediocre to masterful.

This is an interesting horror suspense anthology focusing on a very creative what if nightmarish extensions into Twilight Zone like scenarios. All of the contributions are well written with several superb entries that turn quite frightening when the key character seems like neighbors and in turn that authentic touch leads readers to accept the horrendous happenings to them as real. In a few cases the key protagonist lacks depth (even in terms of a short story) so that the terror is not as fully felt in spite of an original quite imaginative plot line in every case. My favorite personal tale is "Warm Wet Kisses in E-Flat Minor starring Jack and Jill. Of special mention is "Freeze Frame" that reminded me of a 1960s survey comparing residents of Manhattan's Bellvue Hospital to those living in the nearby neighborhoods with the results being no statistical difference between the groups. Fans will feel the SHIVERS from this very inventive collection.

Harriet Klausner