Book Review
Speculative Fiction(Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror mix)
Date Published: August 4, 2020
Publisher: Mictlan Press
There’s magic and mystery around every corner, if you know where to look…
This collection of eleven short stories from fantasy and science fiction author Terri Bruce explores the hidden corners of our world. Blending fantasy, horror, magical realism, and folklore, these tales will delight, mystify, and unsettle.
Souls is a delightfully dark collection of short speculative fiction from the imaginative Terri Bruce, New England author of the Hereafter paranormal fantasy series, which I have reviewed here before.
Collected together, the eleven stories – previously published in magazines or anthologies – are a genre-blend of fantasy, Gothic horror, and literary fiction. Several stories, such as Stone Baby, The Well, The Lady and the Unicorn, and The Ghosts of Acadia have a distinctly New England feel and horror seeps almost unnoticed into everyday life, but others are set in other worlds or have mythological or fairy-tale backdrops. Whatever the setting, realistic or fantastical, all of the stories have very human characters struggling to make sense of their current situations because their lives have taken a sudden, entirely unexpected turn.
It almost always is set in the “real” world in which something isn’t quite what it seems. And there seems to be an undercurrent to the narrative voice – of being unsettled or not quite at ease.
From the author’s introduction, Souls by Terri Bruce
Due to the sense of creeping unease in the stories, Souls may be particularly suited for reading during this unstable pandemic time or for autumn reading. It’s a collection that can be read straight through, or picked up whenever you want to escape from reality for a while. And when you come to the end of a story, you’ll likely feel relieved to reenter your own life – however disrupted and anxiety-ridden it might be at the moment!
I missed the blog tour for Souls earlier this month because I am a very, very bad book blogger, but I still wanted to tell you about this wonderful collection of stories by New England author Terri Bruce. Each story is accompanied by an author’s note explaining how the story came to be, so it’s like having a mini author talk at the end of each one!
Purchase Links
E-book
https://books2read.com/u/bOoD6Q
Print book
Available from all major book retailers, including all international Amazon stores.
Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780991303663
Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Souls-Terri-Bruce/9780991303663
Amazon (U.S.): https://www.amazon.com/Souls-Short-Collection-Terri-Bruce/dp/0991303660
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/souls-terri-bruce/1136848072?ean=9780991303663
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC of Souls in July, but I also bought my own copy to have in my e-book collection. I have received no compensation for this honest review.
Currently Reading
First (and maybe only) book in my #BigBookSummer challenge, this sprawling WWII novel is what I’m reading every morning for an hour or so.
Umami (Oneworld, 2016) by Laia Jusfresa – I borrowed this e-book from the library, but I can’t remember why I chose it. I think I thought it was a foodie book and a good one to follow With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo. It turns out not to have much to do with food or cooking, but is set in a small cluster of houses forming a neighborhood, where dysfunctional families and troubled individuals reside – or have returned to – and who are all struggling individually with grief or other heartache.
I’m reading Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell in an e-ARC from NetGalley. Lots of references here to his other works, including The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is next on my Big Book Summer list.
For book club this week, I’m reading Afterlife (Algonquin, 2020) by Julia Alvarez.
Currently Listening
Loving the audiobook edition of Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, narrated by Graham Halstead! A fictional memoir by a bookseller, featuring crime fiction readers, film buffs, mystery authors, and a mystery-loving FBI agent – what’s not to like?
This post is linked to “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.
We spent last summer in Maine with my husband’s job and I can see how the Northeast would lend itself well to a collection like this. It’s beautiful but it feels old and open to impossible possibilities as well. I’ll have to look for this when I start my October horror-ish reads! Enjoy your week!
Yikes- what a cover! And I love a good short story collection- sometimes a short story or two are perfect for when you want to read but don’t have a lot of time.
Good idea to dedicate a certain time to a book until one day… it is all read!
[…] I also have a few review books I hope to get started on this week, and I’ll probably be dipping into my very own copy of Souls, a short story collection by Terri Bruce, which I reviewed on the blog here. […]