I'm quite fond of gothic fiction, so I was excited to read this modern collection. It was an adequate set of stories, perhaps not ground-breaking, but very entertaining. Most of the authors were new to me, and it does have a definite small-press-feel, which could be a plus or a minus depending on your taste.

Some of my favorite stories were:

"La Noche" by Terri de la Pena, in which a shape-shifting witch and a teenage girl end up involved with an unusual connection.

"Mud" by Judith M Redding is a supernatural murder mystery, featuring a strong, brisk, yet open-minded, voice for the detective leading the case.

"Creepers" by Joanne Dahme suits its title! It feature ghosts, lonely children, and malevolent plants in a combination that is quite effective.

One of the books starting out in The Anthology Assortment Bookbox

I'm claiming this from the Anthology bookbox; looks like a nice creepy collection!

Later: While I wouldn't call most of these stories particularly "gothic", I suppose there's room in the interpretation. And I did enjoy most of them, especially these:

"Femme Coverte" by Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse, an early-19th-century tale set in the Deep South and featuring the brutality of slavery and the repression of women of all races - with a very satisfying method of redressing these wrongs, taken by the twin sister of the heir to the plantation and the slave woman victimized by that heir. The story's not unusual, but the method of righting the wrongs was a bit of a surprise!

"Luella Miller" by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, a classic tale of an emotional vampire, and a longtime favorite of mine - easily the oldest story here, though it felt a bit out of place in a mostly-recent collection. Still, I'm always glad to reread it, and its depiction of a woman who - whether knowingly or not - sucks the life out of people by being utterly helpless is quite horrifying.

"The Birthday Present" by Roz Warren has an unlikely setup that felt a bit manipulative, but I was still pleased at the use of shapeshifting and body-swapping to... rearrange the domestic life of the main characters.

"Pierced" by Linda K. Wright is one of the more "modern gothic" tales here, I thought, with a bleak sensibility about the agony of grief and the lengths to which people will go to get through it. Not to mention the lengths people will go to take advantage of the desperate... [This one reminded me of an excellent short story - whose title and author I can't recall: it had to do with the expectations of families and society that women would bear the emotional burdens of others, do the emotional labor, and so forth; in the story, the women took actual damage from this, with the protagonist realizing what was causing it - and having to choose between protecting herself or living up to those expectations at any cost.]

"Vengeance of Epona" by Susanna Sturgis appealed to the horse-lover in me - I spent much of my childhood happily pretending to be a horse, except for when my love of climbing trees (one thing horses can't do) took over. It's empowering and romantic, and made me want to gallop!

I also give points to Susan Raffo's "Aperitif," mainly due to her comment at the end: "This story was inspired by a friend who lost an eye in a car accident and thought a glass eye could never be sexy."

Very good collection!

I left this book, bagged against the elements, hanging from a sapling near the information kiosk at the Spring St. trailhead of the Pond Parish trails; hope the finder enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2018 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

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

*** Released for the 2018 Tick Tock release challenge. ***