Review: Series of short stories with a horror or paranormal slant.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 14, 2013
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.Quick & Dirty:  Series of short stories with a horror or paranormal slant.Opening Sentence: During the day, he slept amidst rubble and grass, hidden from view, partially because his skin was now the color of dirt.The Review:Short stories are a challenge and most struggle to write an ok story while others seem to have a gift that allows them to capture a scene or scenes and tell a story in a couple of pages.  The perfect example of this are the timeless works of Edgar Allen Poe or Washington Irving.  Their short stories still are what makes us check our house doors and continues to feed Hollywood new ideas like Sleepy Hollow the movie and the TV show.  Ms. Destefano also has this ability to transcend the brevity of so few pages.Two of these short stories really enchanted and delighted me, In The Garden and Letters From Home.  Both of these stories are well crafted stories that truly gripped me by the shoulder and wouldn’t let me go until I was finished.  In fact, I wish In The Garden was a little longer because there are questions that are left unanswered and a story that I wish I knew the ending.This is part of the joy and often the pain of short stories, as a reader you invest your time and sometimes you must live with an ending that just doesn’t satisfy all the revolving questions in your mind.  But it also allows us as readers to fill in the blanks and this adds to our delight and joy in this type of story.Ms. Destefano has placed in this collection 16 short stories.  They range in size from a couple of  pages to twenty-four pages long.  The genre is also hard to narrow down because we have a ghost story, paranormal such as werewolf, and science fiction all thrown together within the interior of this book.  The nice thing about the stories being of such a length and vast array of genres, a reader can jump in at any time and read a complete story no matter the time commitment that they have.This book is a perfect addition to anyone who adores this time of year with Halloween and all the things that go bump in the night.  In fact, I’m glad I read a couple of these in the daytime because I’m not a huge fan of all things that go bump in the night.So if you are looking for a book that fits with the season that is Halloween, I believe this will suit your every need.  I hope you enjoyed it at much as I did and remember there is no shame leaving the lights on after you finish this book.  Boo!Notable Scene:Charmaine says that the plumeria told a story one night when I was sleeping, Charmaine had been looking up into the night sky, watching the stars, wondering why she could see them at night and not during the day, when the plumeria started talking about the murdered plants.  She says that there were other plants before us, a cluster of blushing red primrose, and they used to live where my sisters and I are now.Apparently the Dog dug them up.  I don’t know all the details–and honestly, I don’t want to know, but I think he ate them.  The plumeria says that the Owner brought us home from the nursery the next day, that we were just seeds in a box and it took us a long time to grow.I hate the Dog.  He walks around the yard with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out, smelling everything, going to the bathroom wherever he wants.  And digging–that’s a dangerous hobby.  He needs to stop it or he should go live in another house.  I am going to talk to the Owner about it.  The next time she is listening.FTC Advisory: Merrie Destefano provided me with a copy of Waiting for Midnight. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.