The Curiosities

Took a little break from SVT (I'm on #14) because I received three anthologies from Amazon today. I've been meaning to order two of them and the third I stumbled across. 

The first one is by three ladies who work together on a blog, posting stories, critiquing them together, following the same prompts, etc. I'm not sure if they do it anymore. I tried to look it up and came up with a defunct Livejournal and then a Tumblr that was last updated in 2015. Possibly they got too busy with their individual careers to maintain the project. 

I discovered Brenna Yovanoff in the Don't Turn Out the Lights anthology and then found these anthologies through her page on Amazon. I feel like I've read Maggie Stiefvater in some anthology also, but I read so many that I can't recall. 

This particular book is from 2014 and the follow up is 2018. 

So the premise is that it isn't a typical anthology. It is indeed a collection of short stories, each by one of the three authors, but they also do critiques and commentary all the way through. It's done in a way that doesn't distract from the story. At least it didn't for me. It was fun. 

I'm going to flip through and list off my fave stories, just to see which author I like best. 

MAGGIE:

"A Murder of Gods" (I wish this was a novel series.) 

"The Wind Takes Our Cries"

"Rain Maker"

TESSA:

"The Spiral Table"

"Death Ship"

"Ash-Tree Spell to Break Your Heart"

"Dumb Supper"

"Thomas All"

BRENNA:

"The Bone-Tender"

"Neighbors"

Tessa wins. She tends to go more historical and fantastical, so I can see where I ended up liking her best. I might try one of her series when I get done with some other things. But don't think I don't love the other two. "A Murder of Gods" was hands down the best story in here and one I desperately wish was a novel series. 

So I highly recommend this is you like YA fantasy/horror/supernatural/what have you fiction. There wasn't a single story I did not like.