Illustrated by Adam de Souza 

First of all, let me start with the art cover and the illustrations. I loved them. They capture the essence of the stories they accompany and the cultural universe of the characters in such imaginative ways. The illustrations immerse us in foreign worlds. They depict beautifully the journey littered with obstacles of the characters. We get a sense of urgency and tremor and mystery just by looking at them. 

At the beginning of the book, Jen Campbell sets the tone. Even though, we are eager to read the scary tales, we hold firmly the hem of our clothes in fright of what is to come. We are told that the tales won’t be “ having the happy ever after “ending most famous tales have. 

Each story has its own intricacy. They are set in different parts of the world such as Korea, Ireland, Japan, Nigeria, Germany, Russia, El Salvador, India, South of Africa, China and Spain. I love the idea of gathering gruesome tales from all over the world.

Jen Campbell encapsulates  the sense of storytelling. Her writing builds up the anticipation and suspense very well. We have all the elements of what constitute a scary story. Humans turning into animals, witches, evil mermaids, ghosts in castles, people cutting parts of their bodies and putting them on hold in exchange for lodging, characters being thrown into a well and so on.

The intrigue is present in all of these stories and we, the readers, get shocked by the turn of events in all of the tales.

We have fourteen stories and the one I loved the most was the last one. “The woman in the glass mountain”. I read that Jen Campbell took some liberties with parts of the original story by adding or changing some elements.  Indeed, I really felt her touch in this particular story. It integrates modern discourses such as the challenges of standards of beauty, being different and same gender love all the while embroidering aspects of astuteness, perseverance, loyalty and love. What a nice way to finish a book that recounts some pretty terrifying tales.