CBR V Review 7: "Shudderville (1-5)" by Mia Zabrisky

Do you like scary stories, but not so scary that you're up all night wanting (or not) to look under your bed with a flashlight? Creepy stories, kind of along the lines of "The Twilight Zone"? Mia Zabrisky's first few episodes of "Shudderville" are perfect for this time of year.

Mia Zabrisky has created a series of novellas revolving around a man who can grant wishes. But at what cost? Unforeseen circumstances are the order of the day. Supernatural activities, creepy families, scientific discoveries-all are in the "normal" order of things here.

Shudderville 1 kicks off with Sophie, a woman who has taken to drinking heavily after the loss of her daughter in a car accident. When her neighbor tells her he can grant her wish to have her daughter back, and it goes really wrong, she goes looking for him to make him get her daughter back. What we end up finding out is the wish granter, an old man named Tobias Mandelbaum, has had his fingers in more people's lives with his wish granting than we'd ever imagine. Zabrisky intertwines the stories and relates them together in ways that make sense, and explaining the back story of Mandelbaum and others with flashbacks or with stories that have no time period mentioned. Overarching and creepy-scary, Mia Zabrisky's short stories keep me entertained and looking for the next ones. Since I haven't finished the series, though-I can't vouch for how much more scary they get.

I've only read 1-5, and I loved them.

5 stars