Recent Press & Endorsements

• Locus Magazine, Paula Guran – “Collision: Stories, should be on your ‘‘must read’’ list. Breukelaar, an American living in Sydney, Australia, writes in a clean, incisive style with razor-sharp opening hooks, while blending the literary, the speculative, and the weird.”
• Barnes & Noble Blog – “A BEST SCI-FI FANTASY COLLECTION OF 2019…SO FAR”
• Aurealis Magazine – “There’s an ethereal and dreamlike quality to Breukelaar’s prose that demands attention and reflection that keep the reader enthralled beyond the last page.”
• Bustle.com, K.W. Colyard – “20 New Horror Books For Readers Who Take Spooky Season Seriously” – “Collision, has something for every horror reader, from the gothic, to the weird, and beyond.” – Full Article
• Booklist – “All 12 stories hit the same surreal nerve despite their sometimes vastly different plots, making the transition from one story to another feel like entering an entirely new world. The only predictable element is the collection’s overall strangeness, which is something that never gets old.” – Feb 2019 Issue
• New York Journal of Books, Walker Townsend – “J. S. Breukelaar is a writer of obvious talent, demonstrated over and over in this collection.” – Full Review
• Fangoria – “Breukelaar tackles rejection and misunderstanding head-on by harnessing her wonderfully weird prose and creating an imaginarium from it, one that holds things you’ve never dreamt could – or should – exist.” – Feb 2019 Issue
• Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show – “Each of these stories stylishly investigates an encounter between characters and forces of otherworldly, or in some cases off-world, hues. But Breukelaar accomplishes much more than that. She delves into how such contacts–which range from the merely glancing to the traumatically concussive–lead to altered perspectives and transformations of the mind, a literary feat of the first order.” – Full Review
• Hellnotes – “Collision is a wonderful collection of complex tales that cross genres in ways that are never fully expected at the beginning but always fully realized by the end. The boundaries between different styles are as porous as the boundaries between worlds, but each aspect is precisely organized and elevated by Breukelaar’s versatile and vital techniques. It’s no stretch to say there’s something for everyone here, but we can go further and say there’s something for every version of everyone, even as they shift and change.” – Full Review
• Inkheist, Shane Douglas Keene – “Breukelaar’s stories are fueled with gorgeous darkness, often thematically heartbreaking and always nothing short of amazing.” – Full Review
• Barnes & Noble Blog – “New Scifi Fantasy We Can’t Wait to Read” – “I read Breukelaar’s novel Aletheia earlier this year, and she blew me away with a story that took unexpected turns and seduced me with its vivid prose and flawed, compelling characters. It’s a book I still think about a lot. Since I love short fiction, I really can’t wait to read this collection and see what dark and magical dreams she’ll bring to life there.” – Full Article
• Paperback Paris, Rachel Gonzalez (4 stars) – “J.S. Breukelaar‘s Collision transcends the borders of horror writing by creating fantastical and near real-life world with simple twists that keep them tangible but still impossible to predict. In this short story collection, Breukelaar explores the innate cruelty of man, the uncanny elements of things that sometimes seem unknown, and the things that divide us as a race.” – Full Review
• Paperback Paris – “A Collision of Worlds: J.S. Breukelaar Discusses New Story Collection and Genre-Bending Fiction.” – Interview
• Litreactor.com, Max Booth – “The 15 Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2019” – Full Article
• NB Magazine, Linda Hepworth (5 stars) – “I to urge you to read these haunting, disturbing and thought-provoking stories for yourself. If you enjoy the weird, the quirky and the unexpected, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.” – Full Review
• Breach Magazine, Eugen Bacon – “The stories are ruthless, nothing is safe—even the child who offers a lollipop and loses a wrist to the Clint Eastwood dog. Breukelaar experiments with the Gothic and queries the queer. Bedded within the tales is a voluptuous energy that turns pages. Tables pirouette in a blink and, before you know it, the story is eleven shades grimmer.” – Full Review
• “J.S. Breukelaar moves effortlessly among the varieties of the fantastic, shifting from horror, to science fiction, to fairy tale, sometimes within the same story. Combining gritty, lived-in settings with characters grooved and gouged by their experiences, these stories refract the complexities of contemporary existence, bringing our hopes and horrors to vivid life. Breukelaar’s work collides with the reader, opening us to terror, wonder, and insight.” – John Langan, award-winning author of The Fisherman and House of Windows
• “Collision shows J.S. Breukelaar’s range, from horror to fantasy to literary to science fiction and every emotional register between, but, after reading this collection, I’m not at all sure there’s any kind of limit to what she can get done on the page.” – Stephen Graham Jones
• “J.S. is leaving her footprints on a path blazed by luminaries such as M.R. James, Robert Aickman, Tanith Lee, Kelly Link, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Jeff VanderMeer, Gustave Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, Daphne DuMaurier, Leonora Carrington and Charlotte Brontë, to name but a few.” -Angela Slatter, Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories, Vigil, and Corpselight
• “Stories that start in one place, and end – or don’t – somewhere else entirely, with dread, surprise, and wry beauty along the way . . . Collide with J.S. Breukelaar’s collection, and who can say where you’ll end up?” -Kathe Koja, award-winning author of The Cipher and Buddha Boy
• “J.S. Breukelaar’s new collection, Collision, has definitely the perfect title. Her stories will punch your breath out, slam you sideways and hit you by surprise, leaving you exquisitely bruised and wanting for more. One of the major voices of our times, J.S. Breukelaar is a writer who fears nothing and takes you along her amazing narrative rides that defy genre and conventions, a reckless driver that only notice the signs on the side of the road in order to run them down.” -Seb Doubinsky, author of The Babylonian Trilogy, The Song of Synth, and Missing Signal
• “Strange and unflinchingly surreal, Breukelaar’s stories read like dispatches from a fever dream.” -Keith Rosson, author of Smoke City and The Mercy of the Tide