I find short-story collections quite hard to rate because some of the stories are stronger than others and others just really speak to you, where others may not do so much. Whilst I gave this collection 4 stars, I don't quite know whether that is an accurate reflection of how much I loved it. I really enjoyed The Haunting Season and I just had to give this a read. 

Despite the theme being Christmas for these ghost stories, Christmas was always the setting, but not the most important part of the story, and for a lot of them, it certainly wasn't constantly referred to. This not only meant that when reading this in February that it wasn't too Christmas heavy, but also meant that the horror and terror was the main focus, rather than getting too bogged down with the setting at Christmastime. 

This collection has got some wonderfully haunting stories, and minus the occasional story, they all were aptly written and convincing. There was such a variety of stories as well, some strictly ghost stories, others centring on terror and there was the occasional more 'modern' story rather than all being set in the 1800s. There was certainly a lot of creativity from the writers and some settings that were unexpected for me. All of the stories were atmospheric and spooky and just overall a really good, cohesive collection.

I absolutely would recommend this collection!