Love, Supernatural StyleLove is the universal language. And nowhere is this more apparent than in these extraordinary stories from four of today’s hottest authors. From a futuristic cop caught in a crisis of the heart to a smoldering vision of an unusual love triangle, from the hunger for a human touch on an alien planet to a witch’s desperate search for the love of one man, these tales of paranormal romance will transport you to a time and a place you’ve never been before…. The contents of this collection are satisfyingly versatile, because the stories range from fantasy and science fiction to horror and steampunk. Because the stories feature such things as ghosts, witches and vampires, they have something for everybody and will please a wide range of readers. It's amazing how easily the author writes about different elements and how effortlessly she combines them in her stories. Late on there is one chapter from Joe, Sophie's husband. This is definitely worth waiting for, like a brilliant short story in itself. In it he describes an event from his youth, when his scout troop put on a Christmas party. He had to go out the front and speak a monologue with corny jokes written by the scout-master. Instead of being the disaster he imagined, the audience actually laugh and Joe is in his element. I include this because I had a similar experience. Playing Major Petcoff in the school play "Arms and the Man", I hadn't realised until the first night that my big speech was so funny. It is extraordinary when you get such a reaction from the audience.

contraire, Sophie n’a que deux sujets de conversation auprès du Dr. Klein, son psy : son père et le cul. Lorsqu’elle ne lui parle pas de son père, elle lui parle de ses aventures extra-conjugales. C’est un personnage que j’ai trouvé profondément antipathique, surtout qu’elle explique elle-même tromper son mari parce qu’elle en a l’occasion🤷🏻‍♀️A Scent of Roses" is a brilliant story about Janet who has rescued her husband from the Queen of the Fae. The author writes captivatingly about how Janet becomes interested in the Queen and what she thinks about her husband. I think that this story will enthrall everybody who loves stories about the Fae. I received Out of This World for review and didn’t actually realize it was a middle-grade novel before starting it. It became fairly obvious as I read through, but it’s definitely one of those books that you have to keep pushing through to the end because it all makes much more sense and reaches a whole new level of awesome! A story about Janet and her husband, Tam Lin, who has been rescued from the Queen of the Fair Folk. Janet finds herself falling for the Queen. I will have to return here to fully evaluate the other three stories. I will figure out where "Magic" fits in the Anita Blake series, then return here and report. It is always interesting to me to read a short story by an author whose novels I enjoy. All the elements are there, in a tighter weave than usual. It is a mystery how it done for nothing is missing. The stories are concise, well woven, and captivating.

Catherine Lundoff’s stories have appeared in over 80 publications including Callisto: A Queer Fiction Journal, The Cainite Conspiracies, Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam, So Fey: Queer Faery Stories, The Mammoth Book of Professor Moriarty Adventures, Tales of the Unanticipated, Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures, Farrago’s Wainscot and Best Lesbian Erotica. She is the author of Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Silver Moon: A Wolves of Wolf's Point Novel (new updated edition) and the editor of Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) , all from Queen of Swords Press. Harry Beech was an internationally recognized photographer traveling the world to shoot the often horrific scenes that would appear in the media. He needed to stay emotionally distant from his photos, though his constant traveling caused him to be physically and emotionally distant from his wife and daughter. He realizes the problem with photography "is what you don't see"but he never realizes that is true in his personal life as well. Overview: If you have some time on a Sunday Afternoon (my favorite time), I would recommend reading this light and humorous book. Al ages will enjoy it. Lots of creative ideas and new world to explore! This is one of my favourite stories in this collection, because it has a faint touch of dark fantasy. Another great anthology of novellas where I thoroughly enjoy all four offerings of "Love, Supernatural Style"!A horrific tragedy permeates the whole story, somehow even the lives of the main characters prior to this event. Harry and his estranged daughter Sophie take turns in telling their version in alternating short chapters. This works fine. Sophie, in particular, suffers from what we gather is second hand ptsd, but is she using this an excuse? Time will tell. Graham Swift's writing style is wonderful and immediate, and very matter of fact, the characters are very believable. Since they are young children they find themselves making mistakes that seem so common sense, and then regretting their decision, but learning from it none the less. Each world they jump through they find new and interesting characters that become more and more dangerous. After the first 80% of the book in which our two heroes act with bravery, reason out problems, and demonstrate a considerable amount of highly ethical behavior, to have this all trumped by ‘magic’ was something of a letdown and, at least to me, seemed to nullify the moral lessons in the book. Yes, learning, reasoning, and ethical behavior are fine, but magic is easier and so much more convenient. If you have magic, you don’t need all that other stuff. That’s how the aliens live, in any case, and humans can be just like them.

In this story, Selena meets her old college sweetheart Mona who she dumped for another girl. Mona comes to Selena's shop and asks for ingredients for a love spell. Tales of the queer fantastic. Queer speculative fiction stories. What can the discerning reader expect? Distant planets? Ghosts, witches, old gods? The Queen of the Fay. A magical bookstore (are not they all, to some degree?). Body-theft. Steampunk? Vampires? Yes, the discerning reader will not be disappointed. The fantastic is here indeed. I used to believe once that ours was the age in which we would say farewell to myths and legends, when they would fall off us like useless plumage and we would see ourselves clearly only as what we are. I thought the camera was the key to this process. But I think the world cannot bear to be only what it is. The world always wants another world, a shadow, an echo, a model of itself.” However, the speculative is only part of the title, the fantastic only part of the adjectives given for these tales. These are stories of the queer fantastic. The protagonists found are lesbians, bisexual, gay, or “somehow queer-identified,” as Lundoff explains in her introduction. These are important to her, as a “bi/queer-identified writer,” and to such readers like me. That detective on another planet is transgender. “Beauty”, the vampire retelling of Beauty and the Beast is also a gay love story, a “bit of yaoi with vampires” (v). This vampire gay love story was among my favorites. Shakespeare’s sister has to pass as a man, thus she is a crossdresser. The tale of the witches is a lesbian love story, one marked by jealousy, and slightly less than expert spellcasting. “A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace,” another of my favorites, is about political intrigue, dynastic quarrels, body switching at the palace, among other things. As Lundoff asserts in the introduction, “We need to be able to see ourselves as heroes and villains, gods and monsters, knights and wizards, and fair ladies and dragons and all the points between” (v). I read this and cheered! However, I did want to note that a good story, and this is a collection of excellent stories, is a good story, and that the reader does not have to be “somehow queer-identified” to enjoy them. These are human stories, about the human condition and human experience, seen through the lens of fantastic fiction. Here are some answers to the question of what it means to be human, answers that are thoughtful, often funny, sometimes dark, and always, well told, by an award-winning writer with a gifted imagination and keen sense of language and story.

Activities & resources

I suppose "Interlude" would be considered Number 13.5 in the In Death Series, if we follow the convention set by "Midnight in Death" which is included in the "Silent Night" anthology but that distinction is not touted as loudly here. Eve and Roarke are on Olympus for a cop convention of all things and, true to form, someone is found dead. Though not on her home turf Eve assists the station police in the investigation. And all's well that ends well, as Mr Shakespeare himself once pointed out. Except for the victims, of course. So far, so good. The characters are simple but believable, the settings are well constructed, the plot flows smoothly and logically... for about 80% of the way through.