“Twenty haunting stories from the Bram Stoker Award nominated, and bestselling author of Come With Me.

A man leaves rehab and tries to make a new life for himself, only to find the past closing in on him. A married couple on holiday have a bizarre encounter with a shiver of sharks. And, on Halloween night, a young boy learns the truth of the world from the strange and unsettling Mr Trueheart.

From London to Baltimore and many places in between, these stories claw through reality to find the horror deep within.

In Ronald Malfi’s debut short story collection, the shadows in the dark are ever moving, ever hungry, and the darkness that lurks beneath the surface is never too far away…”

Hello and welcome to damppebbles. Today I am delighted to share my review of We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone by Ronald Malfi. We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone is published by Titan Books today (that’s Tuesday 27th January 2026) and is available in paperback, audio and digital formats. I chose to read a free eARC of We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone but that has in no way influenced my review.

Ronald Malfi is, without a doubt, one of my favourite authors. I’m working my way through his back catalogue, slowly but surely. Some of his earlier books are quite difficult to get hold of in the UK though. It helps, however, when one of your favourite publishers (Titan Books) republishes his older work. And that’s what has happened here with We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone (originally published in 2017).

Other than his full-length novels, I have in the past read two collections of novellas by this author: Ghostwritten and They Lurk. That’s the closest I’ve managed to get to Malfi’s ‘short stories’ (can novellas be classified as short stories? I don’t think they can). Both books have been excellent, so I was very much looking forward to We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone. I’m a reader, not a writer, but I feel short stories are a very different beast to a full-length novel. More condensed. More to the point, having to get the entire message across with significantly fewer words. And with Malfi at the helm, you know you’re in for a dark and disturbing time!

The book kicks off with, in my opinion, one of the best stories in the collection: The Dinner Party. I had a small inkling as to the direction this story would go, but despite that, I still found it deeply shocking. This first story sets the tone for the rest of the book. Malfi is a master storyteller in my eyes. In the updated author’s note at the back of the book, he describes himself not as a horror writer but as a dread writer, and I truly get that. Dark, pulsing dread runs throughout all of the stories in the book. He surpasses other writers in achieving such a heightened, unavoidable sense of it in his writing, and I think that’s one of the many reasons I’m a fan.

Painstation brought to mind Malfi’s last published full-length novel, Senseless (a book I love). There was something about the setting in this story that felt familiar (definitely different enough, but still familiar). If I’m completely honest, this is the story I liked the least. I don’t mind unsettling, uncomfortable stories but elements of this one gave me the ick.

The Jumping Sharks of Dyer Island is another of my favourite stories in the collection. You think you have the measure of the couple in the story, but you don’t. Not really. The ending is shocking, so completely unexpected, and I loved how the author leads in one direction only to turn the tables at the last minute.

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone is an uncomfortable collection of fiction from one of the best! Full of tension, dread and completely unnerving at every turn of the page. Malfi gets his message across in short form with as much style and attention to detail as he does in his full-length novels. You cannot go wrong with this author. Other favourites in the book include: Knocking, Under the Tutelage of Mr Trueheart, The Good Father, The Housewarming (this one made me feel quite claustrophobic!) and Discussions Concerning the Ingestion of Living Insects. All very different, all well-written with plenty of intrigue to keep you fully engrossed. If Ronald Malfi has written it, I wanna read it. Simple as that really. A superb collection from an author who, if you’re a fan of the darker stuff, you should make a point of reading. Compelling, uncomfortable and pretty darn irresistible! Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone by Ronald Malfi was published in the UK by Titan Books on 27th January 2026 and is available in paperback, audio and digital formats (please note, the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | Waterstones | bookshop.org | Goodreads | damppebbles bookshop.org shop | damppebbles amazon.co.uk shop | damppebbles amazon.com shop |

Ronald Malfi is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of several horror novels and thrillers. He is the recipient of two Independent Publisher Book Awards, the Beverly Hills Book Award, the Vincent Preis Horror Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction, and is a Bram Stoker Award nominee. In 2024, the Maryland Library Association presented Malfi with the prestigious William G. Wilson Award for Adult Fiction. When he’s not writing, he’s performing with the rock band VEER.