"What an absolute pleasure to read this early. This is a unique take on an old tale. I absolutely loved it! A dark academia Greek retelling!! Spice free but loaded with great tension! This read like Percy Jackson for adults (in the best way). This book was clearly carefully researched. I was nervous to dive back into more academic focused books (I’ve been reading a lot of unserious romantasy lately) but this was so approachable. The balance between Greek myths, character development and romantic tension was perfection! I fell in love with Hades in this and I’m not even sorry about it. I cannot wait for book two!!"

"This year and last, I read about 90 Creepypasta stories total (both online and in print), and in so doing, I discovered some new and newer horror authors writing tales in this subgenre, which I’d loosely describe as website postings purporting to be true incidents (eg. 'Candle Cove'), though many writers only loosely follow this conceit these days, if at all. 'Snowman Ritual' and 'Smile Dog' by unknown creators and multiple pieces Max Lobdell and Matt Dymerski stood out to me, but by far the best writer I've found crafting such tales is C.K. Walker, also known as The Dalek Emperor, who is actually Rebecca Klingel, a screenwriter now working on Mike Flanagan shows for Netflix as a result of her posts on Reddit (r/nosleep).

C.K. Walker’s first collection Cold, Thin Air is very good. The stories often depict delusional and unreliable characters caught up in troubling events that in reality are far worse than imagined. 'Betsy the Doll' and 'Death at 424 Steerborn Street' are very short and compelling childhood shocks, and 'The Disappearance of Emily Morgan' is an equally memorable tale with a bit more depth. The much longer piece 'The Lost Town of Deepwood, Pennsylannia' is nearly as good as the aforementioned highlights (especially Part I) and shows her capably conceiving and delivering a bigger story.

Cold, Thin Air Vol. 2 is even better than the first collection and at times qualitatively compares to the work of Brian Hodge, who is my favorite living horror author. The terrific opening story in Vol. 2 is 'Mayhem Mountain,' an especially creative, sadistic, and hair-raising ride set in a shut-down theme park—a story I’ll certainly be thinking about when next I ride a roller coaster. 'Dollhouse' is a bizarre, menacing haunted house tale, and 'Copper Canyon' is a baroquely assembled, nonlinear and very authentic feeling document of two families and a car wreck that is absolutely loaded with dread and has a smart twist at the end, despite starting out with the story’s tragic climax. In 'Room 733,' Walker tells a more intense and terrifying version of an atmospheric M.R. James haunting—I was certainly turning on lights in my apartment after reading this one. I had high expectations by the time I read the concluding, far longer tale, 'Borrasca,' which seems like her best-known work. This one feels like a young adult mystery for much of its duration, but certainly delivers a disturbing, satisfying, and very memorable conclusion. Even with a flash-fiction length short like 'The Suicide of Bradley Alligan,' Walker expertly creates dread and tension that extend well beyond the final word.

Like the first collection, Vol. 2 mixes real world and supernatural horrors in ways that make the resolutions and plot progressions all that much harder to anticipate.

I am happy that a talented writer like Rebecca Klingel has found success as a screenwriter, and I really hope she continues to write short stories as C.K. Walker, because her creative and expertly conceived shocks and chills work extremely well on the page."