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    Nocturnes
    Nocturnes
    Nocturnes
    Ebook510 pages8 hours

    Nocturnes

    By John Connolly

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From #1 internationally bestselling author John Connolly comes Nocturnes, a dark, daring, utterly haunting shot story anthology of lost lovers and missing children, predatory demons, and vengeful ghosts.

    Connolly’s collection of supernatural novellas and stories echoes the work of some of the masters of the genre while never losing his own distinctive voice. In "The New Daughter," a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; in "The Underbury Witches," two London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk. And finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella "The Reflecting Eye," in which the photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mailbox of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer. This discovery forces Parker to confront the possibility that the house is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria Books
    Release dateMar 22, 2005
    ISBN9781416514602
    Author

    John Connolly

    John Connolly is the author of the #1 internationally bestselling Charlie Parker thrillers series, the supernatural collection Nocturnes, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnollyBooks.com, or follow him on Twitter @JConnollyBooks.

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    Reviews for Nocturnes

    4.5/5

    35 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      When I recently saw a photograph of the author online, it occurred to me that behind that kindly-looking face must reside a very dark imagination, judging by these creepy and disturbing short stories and two novellas. They are populated by a whole range of supernatural beings that are already well known to readers of ghost and horror stories, and there are others that are unique to John Connolly's fancy, but no less terrifying for that. As always with such collections, some stories work better than others, but on the whole all offerings here are of a consistently high quality. Recommended, but be warned: some of the stories will invade your dreams.
    • 5/5
      Very inventive surprising
    • 4/5
      "Nocturnes" by John Connolly is a collection of short fiction. The stories are book ended by two extended tales set in the United States, while the balance of the remaining thirteen tales takes place in Connolly's native British Isles. Of those thirteen, nine are transcripts of stories written for presentation on BBC's Radio Four. All are --- to varying degrees --- a wild, terrifying ride. This book is to be enjoyed and many of the stories over and over again.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the best story collections that I have read. Nocturnes is a great title as the stories are truly the stuff that nightmares are made of. It is rare that a single author collection doesn't have one story that would be better off in the dust bin but that is the case here. Even the worst story is pretty darn good.On a side note, as Connolly is the author of the excellent Charlie Parker detective series I thought that some of the stories in this collection, particularly The Underbury Witches featuring Inspector Burke and Sergeant Stokes, could serve as a seed for another series, sort of a Scotland Yard/X-Files/Hound of the Baskervilles mash-up. Just a thought in case Connolly ever reads this review.FYI: Nocturnes is considered book 4.5 of the Charlie Parker mystery series as it includes the novella, The Reflecting Eye which includes significant events in the Charlie Parker story arc.
    • 4/5
      I originally picked up Nocturnes Vol. II and was thrilled with the collection therein, so it was a treat to finally find its predecessor.

      This batch was more uneven - some were a tad boring and predictable, or weirdly a little sexist, but then there were others that were genuinely thrilling or just plain beautifully haunting. The Erlking was one that falls into the latter. Genuinely scary, but written so vividly that the prose managed to both horrify and intrigue at the same time. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it was part of the magic that makes John Connolly such a treat to read.

    • 5/5
      A collection of short stories from the author of the Charlie Parker series doesn`t disappoint. These stories more openly supernatural/horror genre writings than the series and (although a few of them can be a bit stereotyped) providing a great time for the lovers of this kind of stories. And yes, there is a longer, excellent CP story in the book as well.
    • 4/5
      This was excellent. It has it all, vampires, ghosts, super metastasizing cancer(a little bit depressing that one) a Charlie Parker short story(brilliant), Lilith, a sinister circus, ancient burial grounds, witches, lost lovers, and demons, among other things. A really enjoyable collection of stories that can be read in sequence or dipped into now and then. The stories make you think, and it’s your imagination that will tend to gross you out.
    • 4/5
      this collection of short horror stories was thoroughly delightful. connolly's writing is classic but creepy.
    • 4/5
      I actually thought that the coda stories were the weakest; I enjoyed the first part of the collection very much, particularly the novellas. Will definitely be picking up his other books.
    • 4/5
      This was my first experience with John Connolly, and I think it was a really good place to start. His short stories are very Lovecraftian, and while I don't think they were as good as Neil Gaiman's short story collections, I still enjoyed most of them. The opening story, The Cancer Cowboy Rides, is the weakest - I'd have preferred to see it pushed towards the end, or not included at all.The novella at the end is part of Connolly's Charlie Parker series. I thought it was easy to enjoy without having read any of the rest, although I could see threads of stories that fans probably recognized. In any case, I liked it so much that it was the deciding factor in giving this collection 4 stars instead of 3. I will definitely be checking out more Charlie Parker novels in the future.
    • 4/5
      Admittedly not all the stories were read, as the ones skipped were not what one was in the mood for. However, the major pieces in this volume — the novellas "The Cancer Cowboy Rides" and the Charlie Parker mystery — were read first (then a large chunk of the short tales), and this previously un-experienced author's work was a joy to read. Entertaining, a mixture of intelligent prose and humour, surprising action scenes, characters of less-than stereotypical variety, and over-all solid story-telling skills fill the volume, making this a perfect introduction to John Connolly's writing. In fact, this might make a perfect introduction to the 'dark fiction' for someone who thinks 'horror' is another word for 'bloody gore'. How suspense and 'alt reality' became synonymous with 'exploding innards and pus' is beyond me, but this will change a mind or two if you need a method.
    • 4/5
      I loved this, my first exposure to the writing of John Connolly. The opening novella, "The Cancer Cowboy Rides," reads a bit like an X-file. Many of the short stories were written for BBC radio, so they are brief but smooth-flowing and quite creepy. At various times, I was reminded of Poe, Lovecraft, and the more contemporary Gaiman and King; still, these stories aren't reiterations....They're more like personalized echoes, if that makes sense. I'd recommend the stories to anyone in the mood for a good old-fashioned ghost story.
    • 5/5
      I liked four stories from this excellent collection so much that I revist them often:The Inkpot Monkey: The tale of a desperate writer who resorts to a strange artifact of a legendary Inkpot Monkey to cure his writer's block, with detrimental results.The Erlking: A creepy story about those old scary stories parents used to tell their children in order to make them aware of the dangers of the world.Some Children Wander By Mistake: If you're scared of clowns, this will give you more reasons why. A great clown horror story that ranks with Stephen King's IT.Miss Froom, Vampire: This one I liked, because it features a female Vampire that instead of brooding over her condition, makes men feel sorry for her in order to lure them to their deaths. You'll never look at gardens the same way again...Highly Recommended for Horror fans.

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    Nocturnes - John Connolly

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