Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness by Mia Dalia

Thank you@zooloosBT For letting me be part of this tour and reviewing this book. Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness is a horror/short stories genre. I adore the descriptions that flow through each of these stories; they give so much atmosphere, and you can feel the chill down your spine while reading these stories. There are eight different stories, and they are all fabulous to read and just as terrifying as each other, but I think my favorite was the Blues for the Soul. I was just gripped from start to end with this one, probably more than the other books. Smiles So Red and Other Tales of Madness would be perfect for Halloween. I like the setting in each of the stories; they are dark and scary. All the stories are easy to get into and all as good as each other, and I think this is a book that you can keep reading and coming back to. I like horror, and this is a great horror. All all the main characters in each story were memorable and fabulous to get to know. I was drawn to the book straight away, and it took me a couple of days to read it. Brilliant, five stars. Bio Mia Dalia is an internationally published, CWA-nominated author of all things fantastic, thrilling, scary, and strange. Her short fiction has been published online by Night Terror Novels, 50-word stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Pyre Magazine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, carte blanche magazine, Jaded Ibis Press, Weird Wide Web; in print anthologies by Sunbury Press, HellBound Press, Black Ink Fiction, Dragon’s Roost Press, Unsettling Reads, Phobica Books, PsychoToxin Press, Wandering Wave Press, rebellionLIT Press, Bullet Points, Critical Blast, Off-Topic Publishing, Exploding Head Press, Sinister Smile Press, Dracula Beyond Stoker Magazine, Mystery Magazine, Headshot Press, Nightshade Press, WonderBird Press; Crystal Lake Publishing, Grendel Press, and more, and featured in narrative podcasts such as Zoetic Press’ Alphanumeric, Sudden Fictions, and Tales to Terrify. Mia’s work has been selected as Tales to Terrify’s top ten best stories of 2023, shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association’s Daggers Award 2024, and praised by authors and editors such as Michael Marshall Smith- “One of the best novels I’ve read in years”, Stephen Jones - “horror tour-de-force”, Clay McLeod Chapman - “every flip of the page leads its readers deeper into uneasy dream”, Neil Sharpson, M.R. Carey, A.C. Wise, Ian Rogers, Edward Ashton, and institutions such as Booklist’s Starred Review: “Beautifully detailed characters and a subtle slide into dread…” Her full-length works include the novels Estate Sale and Have (CamCat Books) and the novellas Tell Me a Story and Discordant (Anuci Press); Arrokoth, and Do You Know The Muffin Man? (Spaceboy Books). Her upcoming work will be featured by PS Publishing, Crystal Lake Publishing, Dark Matter INK, Absinthe Press, Earthling Publications, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and more. 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 🔗 Connect with Mia Facebook https://www.facebook.com/read.daliaverse Instagram https://www.instagram.com/daliaverse/ X (formerly Twitter) https://x.com/Dalia_Verse Website https://daliaverse.wixsite.com/author 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 🔗 Book Links Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/237576430-smile-so-red-and- other-tales-of-madness Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/smilesored-zbt 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 ♡ 🐾 🔗 Featured Book From Mia Dalia, the author of Estate Sale, Haven, and other literary nightmares, comes a uniquely terrifying collection of dark psychological fiction, featuring novelettes and short stories that range from horror to suspense to mystery to coming-of-age to thrillers. SMILE SO RED - a man finds a strange graffitied house in the woods and a smiling darkness that follows him home. SPINDEL - a twelve-year-old boy suspects that one of the neighbors on his paper route might be a local serial killer and sets off to investigate. BLUES FOR THE SOUL- a library worker tries to help a troubled young boy and uncovers a terrible truth about his family. DEVIL’S CHORD - return to the world of Smile So Red with a meta journey set to the earworm tune of your worst nightmares. STUMP - a bullied young boy and a downtrodden family man from the same apartment complex unwittingly entrust their secrets to the same remnant of an old tree in the local woods FLAMINGOS - two sisters must confront their troubled past when a buried memory is triggered by the seemingly innocuous plastic lawn birds. THE TRUNK - striving to achieve the American Dream, a first-generation immigrant from a war-torn country buys a new home and finds something in the basement that has other ideas b for him. REDDEST - another return to the world of Smile So Red, albeit from a very different perspective.