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Book Review: Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror

cover art for Not All Monsters edited by Sara Tantlinger

Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror edited by Sara Tantlinger

Rooster Republic Press, 2020

ISBN-13: 9781946335319

Available: Paperback (  Bookshop.org )

 

Not All Monsters, a new anthology of horror fiction edited by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Sara Tantlinger, contains twenty-one tales of terror and darkness by women authors. Tantlinger had the privilege and challenge of scouring hundreds of entries for the anthology.  Her introduction provides an overview of why she decided to embark on this project, and it is well worth the read.

I loved all the stories in this anthology, although some tales stood out more than others. In “Portrait of a Girl in Red and Yellow” by Joanna Roye, set in the Victorian era, the narrator discovers a hereditary skin condition that turns out to reveal a family secret has been passed on to her. “The Miraculous Ones” by G.G. Silverman tells the story of conjoined twins developing their own personalities and the deep desire to live different lives. In “Black Feathered Phlogiston” by K. P. Kulski, sisters tend to a flock of harpies that live in their attic. As their bodies grow, so do their appetites, and the new woman in their father’s life knows more about the creatures than the girls think she does.  “Leather”, a particularly delicious tale by S. M. Ketcham, reveals what can happen to an incel when he takes things too far. “Pretty Little Vampires” by Sam Fleming tells a dark tale about a woman who wants to attract fairies to her dwelling, but gets more than she bargains for. Joanna Koch’s “The Revenge of Madeline Usher” is wonderful, and keeps with the tone of Poe’s original “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This reimagining of the story of the Usher twins told from the perspective of Madeline gives the original story more grotesque content, a deeper story about what goes on in the House of Usher, and what happens, or could happen, when the house finally falls. Could Madeline finally be free of the house and her brother? It is a brilliant short story.

I would recommend this volume to libraries or individuals who want to expand their collections of women-led horror projects. This is a great book, and I couldn’t put it down once I started reading. Each story has its own unique feel. I look forward to reading more by the contributors! Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in an Anthology. 

Posted on April 3, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Cuckoo Girls by Patricia Lillie

cover art for The Cuckoo Girls by Patricia Lillie

The Cuckoo Girls by Patricia Lillie  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Trepidatio Publishing, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1950305247

Available: Paperback

 

The Cuckoo Girls is a collection of eighteen stories (three are “drabbles” and counted as one in the table of contents), eight of which are original to the collection, and includes “Abby”, a story narrated by the mother of an autistic teenage girl that appears to be an early version of the beginnings of  Lillie’s debut novel The Ceiling Man (I wish she had mentioned this in her story notes as I was not familiar with the novel). I’m glad Lillie expanded the story as the novel apparently includes Abby’s point of view, something I felt was really missing here.  In stories like “That’s What Friends Are For”, about a woman who grew up in a haunted house where she made friends with the ghosts,  and “Mother Sylvia”, which is told from the point of view of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, Lillie shows the imagination to re-vision and reverse familiar schemas, so it appears that in “Abby”, she just needed more space to express that. It’s an eerie and disquieting story as it is.

 

Doppelgangers, twins, parasites, and children gone wrong populate Patricia Lillie’s stories, from her surreal “The Cuckoo Girls” and  “In Loco Parentis”, to those, like “Mother Sylvia” and “The Robber Bridegroom” clearly based on fairy tales, and those mystical but grounded in fact, like “Notes on the Events Leading Up to the Mysterious Disappearance of Miss Lotte Clemens” ,  a fascinating story based on actual newspaper accounts. Other stories are brief but clever, such as “Laundry Lady” and “Three Drabbles Brought to You By the Letter E”, and there is commentary on the tragedies that can be caused by small town “togetherness” in “And One For Azazel (With Jellybeans), a Bradbury-esque tale about a little girl who is blamed for causing the colors of things in her town to change, and “Wishing You The Best Year Ever” about a family held responsible for the fate of a town’s star baseball team.

 

This is an enjoyable and imaginative, if uneven, collection of insightful, quiet, and disquieting, stories about women and girls trapped by circumstance, family, society, and themselves, that leaves me intrigued enough to look into Lillie’s novel. Having now seen the difference between “Abby” and the first few chapters of The Ceiling Man, I would say she’s grown significiantly as a writer and is one to watch for in the future. Recommended.

 

Contains: mention of suicide, mild gore, violence, dismemberment, body horror

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: The Cuckoo Girls is a nominee appearing on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Short Story Collection. 

 

 

Posted on March 29, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Deep by Alma Katsu

cover art for The Deep by Alma Katsu

The Deep by Alma Katsu

G.P. Putnam, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0525537908

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Those who enjoy historical horror devoured Alma Katsu’s The Hunger, which should have taken home the major awards last year, will take the plunge into The Deep, a cross-genre tale that is beautifully disturbing and might even top her previous novel. Perfect timing, as it’s up for top honors at the Stokers this year.

Whereas her last novel mined the ill-fated travels of the pioneers who traversed the Donner Pass, this one dives into the mystique of the Titanic, with a twist. The ship had a sister – the Britannic. This ship was retrofitted to be a hospital to be used during the war.

The story is told by Annie Hebley, a young woman who takes a job as a maid on the Titanic, alternating chapters between the time prior to the sinking and after the disaster. Annie meets the enigmatic Mark Fletcher, a father of a infant and husband to an even stranger character, Caroline, and finds her fate forever intertwined with theirs. As the chapters alternate between her time on both ships. Annie left her  home to see a strange one on the high seas, but is quickly drawn to Mark, who holds a dark secret.

When Annie takes a job on the Britannic after recovering from the sinking of the sister ship, her life turns from serving as a maid to serving as a nurse, where she learns the horrors of war firsthand. Her mind has yet to heal, though, a fact that rears its ugly head when she encounters a man in one of the beds of the wounded. She is convinced it is Mark. Yet, why won’t he admit it to her? Her sanity begins to further unravel as readers are treated to the unreliable narrator motif… or are they?

In the part of the story told prior to the sinking of the Titanic, horror soon creeps in as other passengers, the rich Madeline Astor and her husband, are convinced something sinister has boarded the ship with them – or was built into the hull of the Titanic. After a tragic death, the passengers sense this presence growing, something that Annie seeks to explain while attempting to help Mark and his daughter, who may be facing a much more heinous foe. By the time the ship hits the iceberg, Annie realizes the scope of the disaster matches her own cracking psyche.

The Britannic is supposedly built to be safer and sturdier than the predecessor. Lightning can’t strike twice, can it? Annie’s relentless quest to convince Mark of what truly happened spirals into the dark currents of the Atlantic as it seems the forces that plagued the first ship may have followed her there as well.

What sets this novel apart from other disaster stories is the research Katsu has imbued between the pages. She nails every detail of the period, the ship itself, and the events that occurred on both ships, in a manner that could be exhausting in lesser hands. Instead, The Deep envelops the reader in its setting and drags them down until the final page. Her characters breathe and bleed through the chapters in both stories here, with minor players carving out roles which further both the mystery and the horror.

Highly recommended as both a horror novel and a suspense tale that should widen Alma Katsu’s audience even further.

 

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s Note: The Deep is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Novel. 

 

Posted on March 21, 2021 by , Reply
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