I got this UK-edition hardcover, inscribed by the author to a previous owner, from an online seller. (It's by the author of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores and the fairy-tale-reimagining collection The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers.)

This collection includes tales with vague, surreal, often disturbing elements. Among my favorites:

"Animals" - the narrator describes acquiring a swan's heart, to be carefully trained/groomed to be inserted into the body of the narrator's girlfriend: "When this heart cannot survive without me, when it consistently whimpers and diminishes if away from my side, that is when I will place it inside Cora." {shudder!}

"Plum Pie. Zombie Green. Yellow Bee. Purple Monster." This one's about a group of children who are all apparently some kind of plant-people - though whether mutants or magically cursed/blessed/transformed isn't quite clear. One of their number has gone missing (escaped?) and the title refers to the other kids' attempts to send her a loving message via her favorite colors, via HTML hex-triplet color codes.

"Margaret and Mary and the End of the World" blends religious iconography with eating disorders, with Rossetti's "The Annunciation" playing a key role. ("Why are Gabriel's feet on fire?")

"Aunt Libby's Coffin Hotel": here, the main character actually runs a "coffin hotel" on a remote island, using trick lighting and special effects to simulate many different aspects of mythological death icons - and providing actual coffins for the guests to sleep in. (There are hints that, sometimes, this does not end well for the guests.) Very unusual, and with the strong suggestion that, after all the fakery, our main character might be on the brink of meeting an actual ghost.

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this warm, sunny day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

Released for:

** 2024 April Showers/May Flowers challenge **