Short Horror Stories Vol 4, Scare Street. Written by Ron Ripley, Rowen Rook, and Sara Clancy; Edited by Kathryn St. John-Sinn. 2019

There are only three stories in this collection, but they are satisfying. All convey an odd sense of claustrophobia- even though none of them is physically cramped. It’s a feeling of… being smothered by the unseen. Being stalked by the unknown.

The first starts with a woman taking a late afternoon walk through a deserted cemetery and the woods behind it. Even though it’s in the middle of a developed area, it seems to go on a very, very long way- and something is following her.

In the second, in the middle of the night, a father searches for his teenaged daughter in an eerie carnival that has mysteriously popped up next to his house, only to find his past catching up to him.

The third finds a grieving widow facing real horrors in her house; horrors that her friend thinks are grief induced. They aren’t.

A quick read, but worthwhile. Four stars.

 

Weyward, by Emilia Hart. St. Martin’s Press, 2023

This debut work of magical fiction follows the lives of three women: Altha, in the 1600s, Violet in the 1940s, and Kate, in 2019. They are connected by blood, as they come to find. They also sfhare a magical relationship to living things. And they all suffer at the hands of men, abused and used as the men saw fit.

Altha, the village herbal healer, finds herself accused of being a witch and causing deaths. Violet, at 16, is isolated by her father, living in the family estate and craving books, learning, and adventures while her father only sees her as a token to be married off. Kate is fleeing her abusive husband, determined to hide her pregnancy from him. He has micromanaged her life, parading her as a trophy while beating her at home- always making sure the bruises and cuts she always has are hidden by clothing. All three find shelter and solace in a shack in the forest, where there are tinctures ripening and herbs and food plants outside, and insects, birds, and critters gather around them. The land itself protects them.

I suspect that people who love Alice Hoffmann will love this novel. The strong women and the magic really put me in mind of ‘Practical Magic’. But this is no dim copy; this is a world of its own with a magic system with rules of its own. The magic isn’t overused; it’s mostly a quiet undercurrent, like having electricity available but not hooked up just yet. But when a life is threatened- be it the Weyward woman or her friends- it comes out with tremendous power. The setting is full of magic itself; the magic of life and beauty. The story is compelling; I held my breathe waiting to see what would happen to the Weyward women. Five stars.

 

Old Babes in the Wood, by Margaret Atwood. Doubleday, 2023

 This latest book by Atwood, a collection of short stories, is divisible into two categories. There are several stories about a couple named Tig & Nell, from the time they are young right through Nell’s widowhood, as she adjusts to the absence of Tig. The rest of the stories are unconnected; some are sci-fi, some regular fiction. The quality is all over the place, too- some captivated me- I really liked the tales of Nell and Tig, even though the characters are kind of full of themselves at times. The story where Nell is going through Tig’s belongings after his death affected me deeply, as did “Morte de Smudgie”- an ode to Nell’s dead cat. The oddest is one where a snail finds his soul transposed into a human body. And of course, there’s the one where a woman goes to a spiritual medium to talk to the spirit of George Orwell…. Four stars.