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Book reviews Books Fiction

Thin Places by Kay Chronister review – ‘a powerful first collection’

A new publication from Undertow is always a treat. With books like Laura Mauro’s wonderful Sing Your Sadness Deep and the Year’s Best Weird Fiction anthologies Michael Kelly has made the imprint into a go-to for modern weird horror fiction. Thin Places is Chronister’s debut collection, blending stories previously published in places like Black Static and Kelly’s own Shadows & Tall Trees with a handful of previously unpublished works, so she faces the double-edged sword of being amongst excellent company. Thankfully, she faces it with aplomb.

Categories
Book reviews Books Fiction

Sing Your Sadness Deep by Laura Mauro – a debut collection of inventive horror

It’s 2019, and the horror genre can often still use disturbingly careless tactics in attempts to induce fear and shock; deformities and disabilities portrayed as monstrous traits and the severe torture and murder of women being normalised are among some of the harmful tropes. It is such a refreshing relief to pick up Laura Mauro’s Sing Your Sadness Deep and find another fresh horror writer who has found inventive ways to produce said fear and shock.