Damned Whispers
Thomas Stewart
Independently published (April 24, 2022)
Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy
Damned Whispers is the first short story collection by Thomas Stewart. I liked his collection, The Other Side, better. I felt he really hit his stride with that one and it was a sound, cohesive short story collection. This collection didn’t hold my attention as well. It’s like the difference between a regular pepper and a jalapeno pepper. I’m unsure if it’s because the second collection had a tighter theme all the stories centered around, or if it’s because I sympathized more with the characters, or if it’s because I felt some of the stories in Damned Whispers could have been shorter and I wouldn’t have missed anything.
Stewart is a great writer and knows how to use action and imagery well, which isn’t lacking in this book. If I had to pick between the first or second collection to buy to introduce you to this writer, I’d tell you to buy the second one because I think it represents Stewart’s talents, which are sarcastic characters you love to hate, heroes and heroines you love to cheer for, and lots of interesting plot lines.
There were a few standouts in this collection. For me they were “What Colors are the Walls?” which is just an evil plot to get people to lose their minds for research, but they really think they’re in a contest to win $10,000 if they stay in the room for three days. Another favorite was “Stacey’s Dollhouse,” which involves a creepy dollhouse and a creepy kid who has bizarro, accurate, and psychologically disturbing premonitions about what is going to happen to her classmates or their parents. The fourth is “Keep the Boat Rowin’,” in which a lake entices people with haunting whispers to spend all eternity at the bottom of its murky depths. And the last one I really enjoyed was “The Monster Under the Bed,” which is a fun one, obviously about what the title of the story suggests.
The other stories were okay, but I feel the characters were a bit underdeveloped. I would give this book three stars because Stewart is a good writer and there were some great stories in this collection.
