No Trouble At All is an anthology of horror stories centred around politeness in various forms, from the hidden violence that comes with a polite veneer to strange promises you might be drawn into and forced to comply with. The fifteen stories within the collection are quite varied in terms of what ideas of politeness, polite society, or hospitality they engage with, far more than I expected when I came to the book with an image of unnervingly polite characters hiding terrible horrors in my head. There’s a lot of engagement with how other people treat you and how you treat other people, again in a range of ways, and what is most notable across the stories is the kinds of relationships and what goes said and unsaid in the name of politeness.
The stories vary in terms of the forms of horror they involve, and I did prefer some of the more extreme ones, like ‘Anger Management’ about a family with a strange method of dealing with stresses in their life, as I found the concept really stood out and it really explored what might be required to stay ostensibly polite to others. The ideas of promises and contracts also plays out in stories that look at deals with demons—I really liked how ‘Acid Skin’ told the story of an unusual wish in a contract that goes in a very different way to how you might expect, twisting the typical narrative of wishing for something with obvious downsides. The closing story, ‘Welcome to the New You’, offers something that’s more of a dystopian horror and it is interesting how the theme of the anthology, politeness, plays into it without being the main plot point.
Some of the other stories were less engaging for me personally, as the stories are quite varied and some didn’t quite grip me with their concept or execution in the sharp way I tend to like from a short story, especially a horror story. Probably other people will like these more, as it is often true of anthologies that everyone likes different stories within them. The polite horror concept is definitely an interesting one, looking at the undercurrents running beneath politeness or societal expectations, and whilst I would’ve preferred it to have more dark stories in it, I appreciate how there’s got to be a fair number of stories with more lingering horror that lurks underneath the veneer.
Fiendfully Reading 
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