I've had this softcover on my keeper shelves for years now, and I think it's time it went traveling.

This is an anthology of vaguely ghost-related stories with gay or lesbian protagonists; some of them are really scary, others funny, others quite sweet. The title story, by Don Sakers, features an aging drag queen who's tired of life - and of his job on a space station - until Carmen steps in to change his attitude. Then there's A. J. Potter's "Taking Care of Faith," a sweet little story which pleased me no end; a fellow moves in to a new apartment and finds that he's being haunted by a ghost who's very fond of peanut butter... and who wants a favor from him. [Turns out that "Taking Care of Faith" is a sequel; I recognized the characters in Potter's "Keep the Faith" from the anthology "Bending the Landscape: Horror". You don't have to have read the first story to enjoy "Taking Care of Faith," but it's a good one and it makes this one more poignant...]

Those are a couple of the sweet ones. "Thing at the Bottom of the Bed" and "Echoes" are not sweet at all; depending on your comfort level you may want to leave the lights on after those. All in all I'd say this is a decent assortment - not achieving greatness, but a nice, varied collection.

I'm putting this into the Otherworldly bookbox, which will be on its way to its next stop soon. Enjoy!

This book rode to the end of the Otherworldly Book box.

This was a solid, entertaining collection of supernatural tales. Like GoryDetails, I wasn't blown away, but did find it a fun read. I think one thing I would have liked was a more cohesive tone; there are some squirm-inducing gut-roilers here, but also sugary-sweet, meet-cute romances. It results in some mood whiplash.

My favorite stories were:

"The Haunting of Room 110" by Michael Price Nelson, which was a classic death-predicting ghost tale set in a hospice center, with an unexpectedly bitter-sweet ending.

"Moving Into a New Place" by Regan McClure has some lovely visual description of a possession-type haunting as an unknown entity tries to complete a quest.

"Closer" by Andrew Berac features a refreshingly unflappable narrator who really isn't too bothered by the ghosts in his temporary home, and is content to ignore them until his friends convince him he should do something about these apparitions.

"Old as Rose in Bloom" by Lawrence Schimel actually made me choke up a little, as a ghostly mother helps her daughter prepare for prom and offers a hopeful message.

"Echos" by M. Christian is one of the creepy tales in the collection, and left me with as many questions as answers.

One of the books starting out in The Anthology Assortment Bookbox

I'm claiming this one back from the Anthology bookbox, by way of reaching the "shrink by 2" factor. And I think I have a good idea where to wild-release this one!

I meant to leave this book on top of one of the gas pumps, for a "CAR-men" theme, but as the weather was threatening I left it in a free-pamphlet rack inside the welcome center instead; hope the finder enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2018 Spook-Tacular October release challenge. ***