3.5/5 stars!

HARDENED HEARTS contains dark fiction stories connected by the theme of love-all kinds of love. This book's strength is in its diversity. It covers so many facets of the subject, there's something here for everyone. The tales that stood out for me were:

Calvin Demmer's story WHAT IS LOVE knocked my socks off! I will be tracking down more from this author!

THE HEART OF THE ORCHARD by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi. This read almost like a warped fairy tale, and as we all know, fairy tales can often be quite grim.

PINK BALLOON by Tom Deady was my favorite story in the book. It totally broke my heart.

HEIRLOOM by Theresa Braun. I love tales about mirrors and this was an excellent example of why. This was my first experience with Theresa Braun's work and we are off to a good start.

THE RECLUSE by John Boden. Short and sweet, Boden always impresses me.

ClASS OF 2000 by Robert Dean. I guess the moral of this tale is not to mess with someone that can throw a baseball at 100 mph. It seems like common sense to me.

BURNING SAMANTHA by Scott Hallum. I had never previously heard of Scott, but he's on my radar now.

50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR MONSTER LOVER by Gwendolyn Kiste. Here is another author that I haven't had any experience with but whose story was impressive.

Lastly, IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO by J.L. Knight. A heartbreaking story about love and loss. Poignant and dark all at the same time.

9 of the 17 tales resonated deeply with me and that's above average, so I rounded up my original rating from 3 to 4 stars. I have some new authors to follow and I think they are offering up original work which only improves the genre. Bravo!

Recommended for fans of diverse dark fiction.

*Thanks to John Boden for providing an e-ARC of this anthology in exchange for my honest review. This is it.* ( )

Hardened Hearts is a collection of short stories that is gross, lovely, sad, scary, terrifying, evil and all that is in between. The characters hearts will be laid bare, some you can literally see. Are you afraid yet? Some of the horror can be in told a few pages, some will take longer, but all of them are sure to entertain you. I give the collection four stars, but have also included a one sentence review for each story.

See them at http://www.fundinmental.com ( )

Some hearts are tougher to stomach than others.

Short stories running the rusty knife gamut of love, from the insanely familiar strains of the obsessively romantic and the deeply sexual and passionate, to infinitely complex and weighted familial bindings. Despite the welcome variety in the stories selected for this collection, and the attempt to traverse as wide a spectrum of styles as possible, the subject is too grand and doomed to glorious failure. Which is fitting of course. The collection burns bravely, and ends up above average, and even a little wiser as a result, if we are allowing such things. I like the ambition.

Nothing more frightening and unendurable than an exquisite heart hardening against you. ( )