“Impeccably well written stories of the peculiar and off-kilter, reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates and Alison Moore. Characters ache and fret in disquieting narratives, blurry at the edges. Many writers of the macabre and fragile psychologies claim to inherit the mantle of Poe, but Birnie earns it in spades.”

— Stephen Volk, writer of Ghostwatch, Afterlife, and the Dark Masters Trilogy

“These are strange, paranoid tales, no less dangerous or jagged for the comic matter-of-fact way in which they are told. Birnie's style is deceptively amiable - he ushers you into his thought experiments cheerfully enough, and then blindsides you with accounts of real love, grief and despair. These stories get right under your skin. They unnerve you. They will indeed haunt you.”

— Robert Shearman, author of We All Hear Stories in the Dark