The Grotesquerie is a collection of 22 short stories by various authors celebrating women in horror. I bought it because the editor Eden Royce is one of my favourite indie short story writers. Her collections Spook Lights and Spook Lights 2 and wonderful books. The first thing I noticed about this collection was that she hadn't written any of the stories, which seems a shame, but never mind it's my chance to find new indie horror writers.
Sadly the collection didn't quite live up to my expectations. There were little things that niggled me, like the terrible formatting, including 89 between each line break for no obvious reason, and misspellings like now instead of know, which made me wonder whether the publisher ever ordered an advance copy of the paperback to check before distribution. My guess is they didn't.
The ideas for the stories are quirky and interesting including: Fruit that makes a vegan woman crave raw flesh; a mass of stray cats terrorising a woman in her home; Ecstasy pills that transport people into hell; and a woman who uses the town's menfolk to sire her demonic children. It may be telling that I didn't manage to read the collection without taking breaks to read other books that interested me more. There seem to be two types of short stories – one that follows a plot and has a character arc, albeit limited by length, the other describes one scene or a moment of time, concentrating on mood, setting and internal dialogue which often lacks a satisfactory end. A lot of the stories in this collection seem to be the latter and I prefer the former style. If you prefer the moment in time style of short stories it is likely you'll enjoy this collection more than I did.
There were 5 stories I really enjoyed, however. “Ice Crystals” by M von Schussler, “Papa's Wrench and the Wind Chime” by Marianne Halbert, “Fate's Hornet” by Jessica Housand-Weaver, “Wicked Trip” by Carrie Martin, and “Hide and Seek” by Lilliana Rose.
I'm glad I picked it up and I now have new authors to check out. Even with the problems and all the abrupt endings I did enjoy it. 3.5/5 stars.
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