Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio, #partner for the ALC of Please Remain Seated in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published: September 22, 2026
Summary:
From the author of the horror sensation We Used to Live Here and The Caretaker comes a bingeable and perfectly unsettling audio collection of three brand new short stories, taking listeners all the way from a nightmareish flight through unfriendly skies to a submarine in the darkest depths of the ocean.
In Please Remain Seated, a young woman misses her flight home, and in her desperation to rebook, accepts a ticket on an airline she’s never heard of. She soon discovers she is the only passenger.
Backroads opens with a car somewhere deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, a disoriented driver spins out off the road after hitting…something. Calling out to offer help, what he finds is not a creature in need, but a dangerous, inexplicable predator, and a life-or-death chase begins.
And Anomaly brings listeners on a deep-sea a first-time diver joins an experienced crew on what should be a simple mission—before all goes horribly wrong.
This collection of stories, all never before published, is the first original audiobook by Marcus Kliewer, “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
My thoughts:
Marcus Kliewer is quickly becoming my go-to for horror and I was thrilled to get my hands on this audio version of his short story collection. I love short stories – sometimes they are just right after some heavier reads or when you just need some bite-size stories to change things up and these definitely were all that and more.
As with short stories, though, there are some I liked more than others. We have three stories in this collection – one set in the sky, one on land and one set in the sea. These stories creeped me out, left me unsettled, feeling just a bit claustrophic and on edge, and I haven’t stopped thinking about them – especially that first story. That was easily my favorite! This author’s mind is something else and I love how he took the unknown and made it somewhat terrifying but not so much that it wasn’t believable.
My favorite aspect, though, were the incredible sound effects throughout the entire collection. Each story had its own narrator, who was fantastic in their own right. Sosie Bacon, Jeremy Bobb and Kyle Beltran all brought their A-game to their respective stories. That combined with the sound effects elevated the listening experience – they really pulled you into the story, making it that much more immersive.
These are quick, engaging stories that are the perfect addition to your #SpookySeason tbr!
