Official Review: Let It Snow by Red Tash

[Alexandra Bayer]

This collection is made up of short stories written by ten different authors. All of the stories have to do with a winter holiday, and most with something paranormal. The short stories are written about characters the authors have written about already, in a book or series that is already published, or is soon going to be. None of the stories are related to each other, but they all tie into the holiday spirit enough to make readers want to Let It Snow!

When I received this book, I started it immediately, in the hopes of delving into the holiday spirit! However, there wasn't as much of that spirit as I'd thought there would be. Yes, every one of the stories mentioned some sort of end-of-the-year holiday, but some very briefly, and only because it was required to be published in this book. I would have enjoyed much more holiday spirit. Not even only Christmas, which I celebrate, but Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other celebration.

I know this collection of stories was compiled in a short amount of time, but even so, I found there to be quite a few errors in the writing. No spelling mistakes, actually, but a few apostrophes out of place and sentences that don't make any sense. I think with more thorough editing, this could definitely have been avoided. Aside from these errors (which likely were only visible to my error-hawk-eyes), I found the stories to be quite entertaining. Each of the authors had very different and individual writing styles, each of which I enjoyed, though some more than others, obviously.

At the end of each short story, there was information on how to learn more about the author or characters. I found this to be a great idea, since now, if you fell in love with a certain character or writing style, you could check out each website to get more information and updates. A novel chock-full of short stories is an excellent way of finding a new favourite author, or in his case, set of characters, since all of these characters had already been written about by these authors. I'm definitely going to be looking out for some of these authors in the future.

The idea of a collection of holiday stories had me intrigued. However, when I actually began the stories and found they weren't as spirited as I'd assumed they'd be, I was a bit disappointed, though I definitely still enjoyed reading them. Overall, I'd rate this collection three stars. I loved some of the stories, but I wasn't as keen on others, so three stars is about what the rating should be, averaged out. I'm hoping to see some more new stories from these authors in times to come.