The Stray Reader

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Author:	Iain Rob Wright
Genre(s):	➡️ Short Stories ➡️ Contemporary Horror ➡️ Thriller
Series? Series Order: Series Title:	✅ Yes Chapter 13 A-Z of Horror
Goodreads Rating:	⭐3.99 (71 ratings; 17 reviews)
Personal Rating:	⭐ 2 / 5 Overall

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🛑 Spoiler Warning 🛑

I might be recounting events, characters, and themes so THIS MIGHT BE FULL OF SPOILERS.

If you’d like to read a review with the spoilers hidden, kindly head to my Goodreads post. You don’t need an account to read it. 🙂

🗒️ BLURB 🗒️

What follows are the true-life inspired events of Spring 2015.

Iain Rob Wright was a young author, trying to support his family by making a name for himself in the Horror genre. He was gathering fans quickly.

But when Iain made a fan named Matty-Bob, things became stranger than fiction. The horror in his life became more than just the words in his books.

Short Story by bestselling author, Iain Rob Wright.

Source: Goodreads

🌟Review (2/5) 🌟

If you read the author’s name at the top of this post, read the book description, and then asked ‘wait, what?’ Let me answer that question for you. Yes, this is a short story with the actual author as the protagonist. He even used his wife and son’s real names! It was fun.

The story, as you may have guessed, is about a ‘crazy’ fan trespassing on his house and his personal boundaries one regular day. There are absolutely bizarre things that are in here, true, but this story made me laugh more than scared. I only learned later on by reading the description that it was actually inspired by true events in the author’s life, unfortunately, so that’s the only time I understood how this was meant to be a little creepy.

The story is very tongue-in-cheek. Iain has these imaginations of grandeur from the people around him about his occupation as a writer, his… organ, his works. That was a really fun element for sure, but, it was just too much for me I think. I know there’s a comedy-horror genre that really works but maybe it didn’t work for me this time because I just wasn’t in the mood? I don’t know.

I will say, I loved all the easter eggs. Shitting on other horror authors like Matt Shaw as a form of friendly banter really made me smile. I’m happy that Iain found a way to transform a scary situation for him into a comedic horror story. I hope he and his family moved on and are safer.

Included in this book is also the crazy fan’s version of the story. Adds a great element of perspective and, again, more fun as it alludes that the crazy fan was driven to this whole situation by a rival author.

If you’re curious to find out the details, this story is part of a collection called A-Z of Horror by Iain Rob Wright. You can check out the book on Amazon. It’s free to read through Kindle Unlimited!