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Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja

cover art for Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja

(  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja

Meerkat Press, 2020

ISBN-13: 139781946154231

Available : Paperback and Kindle

 

Kathe Koja’s work defies any label. Certainly it is in the area of dark fiction, often imbued with gloomy atmospheres, occasionally turning into horror, sometimes disguised as historical vignettes. The eclectic nature of her  literary output is well represented in this collection, which provides an effective showcase of some her short fiction, previously scattered in different anthologies, as well as two new ones.

Thus, if you’re not familiar with this gifted author, the present volume is a great opportunity to get acquainted with her work. While most of the stories collected here have been previously published, there are two original to this collection.

The book is formally divided into five  different sections: At Home, Downtown, On the Way, Over There, and Inside, but, truth be told, these labels mean very little in terms of the stories’ content.

This volume features thirteen stories, some more memorable than others, but mostly interesting and quite enjoyable. To me the more accomplished tales are:  “Baby”, a dark story revolving around a peculiar puppet; “The Marble Lily”, featuring a morgue janitor morbidily fascinated with death; “Pas de Deux”, portraying a woman who decides to leave the boring comfort of her married life to totally devote herself to dancing; “Far and Wee”, where country life and city life are painfully compared;  the disquieting “ La Reine d’Enfer”; and the gloomy “Coyote Pass”.

Very few writers share Koja’s ability to describe the grim side of life and the pain and secret melancholy of human condition. You’ve been warned.

 

Contains: occasional sex and mild violence

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

 

Editor’s note: Velocities: Stories is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.

 

 

 

Posted on February 27, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: The Burning Girls: A Novel by C.J. Tudor

cover art for The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

(   Bookshop.com |  Amazon.com )

The Burning Girls: A Novel by C.J. Tudor

Ballantine Books, 2021

ISBN-13 : 978-1984825025

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Some of the best books straddle genres and wind up splintering the boundaries in the process. Some of the best authors writing today have nailed this, refusing to be pigeonholed.

C.J. Tudor broke through with the phenomenal novel The Chalk Man and now takes her blend of horror, mystery, and thriller, churning it into one of the first hits of the new year.

Set in modern-day England, Reverend Jack Brooks appears to be running from her past when she is reassigned to a church in Chapel Croft, a town where the previous vicar committed suicide. Jack and her daughter Flo reluctantly leave Nottingham after a case that may have involved an exorcism left a young girl dead. Immediately, Jack discovers the small town is full of mysteries, conspiracies, and hidden shadows that make her past resemble heaven.

The legend of the burning girls harkens back to the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary in the sixteenth century, whose purge of Protestants resulted in the deaths of eight victims, including two young girls, through, of course, burning. Thirty years ago, another pair of girls disappeared from the town, apparently meeting with foul play. Toss in another missing vicar, and the stage is set for a creepy tale that might bring to mind the best of Shirley Jackson if channeled through Lauren Beukes.

The legend says that whoever sees the burning girls is destined for a horrific fate. On her first morning, Jack discovers effigies on her doorstep, while Flo catches a fiery specter on film when exploring a disturbing, abandoned house with a boy whose past carries its own hefty shadows.

As Jack discovers the terrors that Chapel Croft has spent centuries burying, she struggles to find who to trust, and who might be seeking to add her to the body count the church seems to invite.

Tudor brings a strong dose of horror that evokes folktale. mythology, and evil in human form, by way of small town mentality. What sets The Burning Girls apart from other novels is the writing. Tudor’s strong voice is both alluring and conversational, deceptively simple in its complex characterization, especially of the role of a female priest in a setting stuck on living in dangerous nostalgia. Humor is utilzed as a foil to the terror Tudor wraps around the twisting plot, succeeding in keeping the reader off guard until the final note is played. Both this novel and the author’s previous offerings are highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on February 21, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

cover art for Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Tales of the Fighting Pumpkins

( Amazon.com  |  Subterranean Press  limited edition hardcover  | Subterranean Press ebook edition )

Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

Subterranean Press, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1596069978

Available: Direct from Subterranean Press (limited edition hardcover, ebook edition), and Kindle edition

 

Into every high school class a cheerleading squad must come to fight against the forces of darkness: aliens, mud monsters, and eldritch creatures.  Squads that don’t survive until graduation are forgotten, and a mysterious force chooses a new cheer captain to recruit a new squad. This tight-knit group of cheerleaders, who may or may not be supernatural themselves, are the Fighting Pumpkins of Johnson’s Crossing, California. These are their stories.

The stories have been published over time, in different places: I first encountered them in the story “Away Game”, a clever, if predictable, story that appears in A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods, edited by Jennifer Brozek, and have been seeking out their stories since then. I’m so glad they have now been collected together. Originally a limited edition published by Subterranean Press, the collection is now available as an ebook.

Because there have been many cheerleading squads over a long period of time, the stories can be set in a variety of time periods, with different characters. While the majority of the Fighting Pumpkins stories are linked stories about the same varsity squad, with half-vampire cheer captain Jude, squad historian Colleen, Laurie, who has a command voice, supernaturally strong Marti, and undead Heather, a few take place in other time periods and with other squads, such as the titular “Dying With Her Cheer Pants On”, in which the team dies calling Bloody Mary from a mirror during an alien invasion to exterminate the aliens, and “Switchblade Smile”, which features Jude’s mother Andrea, a vampire, as a cheerleader in the 1930s.

Character development is strong, and there is a lot of humor (how can there not be with a team called the Fighting Pumpkins?). McGuire draws from a kitchen-sink universe where any creature of the imagination can be real,  and remixes tropes to create her stories, but the sisterhood of the girls on the cheer squad is what makes the stories of the Fighting Pumpkins really enjoyable. Although a story might center on a specific character, these stories aren’t about a single individual or chosen one bound to save the world on her own. The girls are a team, and they stick together even when things are scary, or dangerous, or one of them turns out to be a monster. Two related stories that involve cheerleader Heather Monroe stood out as favorites, “Gimme a Z”, in which she rises from the grave and defends her sister Pumpkins from an undead mob, and “Turn the World Around”,  an often poetic story in which she helps a girl who mysteriously shows up in a Fighting Pumpkins uniform make a life-and-death decision that will affect the entire community. “School Colors” covers a cheerleading competition between the Fighting Pumpkins and an alien cheerleading squad that could decide the fate of the planet.

The stories of the Fighting Pumpkins are a little scary, but mostly a lot of fun. Those looking for a break from heavy or intense reading will find a lot to like, as will Buffy lovers.  YA readers may enjoy this collection as well.

 

Contains : strong language, violence, some gore. The story “Fiber” received some criticism from First Nations people regarding McGuire’s interpretation of the wendigo.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on February 21, 2021 by , Reply
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