Hell in the Heartlands edited by Martel Sardina and Roger Dale Trexler (Annihilation Press) features sixteen new stories by Illinois writers. There are notable stories by S. C. E. Cooney, Nikki M. Pill, and a particularly good one by Richard Chwedyk.

Dark Territories edited by Gary Frank and Mary SanGiovanni (GSHW Press) is part of an annual anthology series showcasing stories by members of the Garden State Horror Writers. All fifteen stories take place in New Jersey and twelve are published for the first time.

Like a Chinese Tattoo: Twelve Inscrutably Twisted Tales (DarkArts Books) features four writers with three stories each, most originals. Contributors are Cullen Bunn, Rick R. Reed, David Thomas Lord, and J. A. Konrath. The strongest entries are the novellas by Bunn and Konrath.

The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams (Night Shade Books) is an almost five-hundred-page anthology of thirty-four zombie stories (one, a brand new novella by John Langan) including stories by Clive Barker, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Poppy Z. Brite, and others.

Read by Dawn, Volume 3 edited by Adèle Hartley (Bloody Books) has twenty eight new stories, too many of which are thin on character and seem to unfold with no rhyme or reason. However, this volume is a definite improvement over the earlier two volumes in the series, and there are notable stories by Scott Stainton Miller, Samuel Miner, Peter Gutiérrez, Rebecca Lloyd, Joel Sutherland, Ryan Cooper, and Jamie Killen.

Blood Lite edited by Kevin J. Anderson is published under the aegis of the Horror Writers Association and has twenty-one stories of humorous horror. The stories that best accomplish this difficult task are by Janet Berliner, Lucien Soulban, Nancy Kilpatrick, and Jim Butcher.

Sins of the Sirens: Fourteen Tales of Dark Desire edited by John Everson (Dark Arts Books) presents 20,000 words of original and reprinted fiction by four writers: Loren Rhoads, Maria Alexander, Mehitobel Wilson, and Christa Faust. Some good stories here.