Synopses & Reviews
Ghosts and mythic beings populate this holiday-themed collection of eleven tales to read by candlelight. Holiday,” a story of all holidays for a dead girl and the man who sees her, is followed by New Years Day and Memoir of a Deer Woman,” a womans transformation into a deer leaves her husband desperate for her words. Valentines Day is celebrated with Journey into the Kingdom,” winner of the World Fantasy Award, where a young girl falls in love with a ghost. A May Day wedding in The Machine” is a tale of innocence lost and terrible revenge, a story not for the faint of heart. Mothers Day brings us a future where women who have had abortions are punished in Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughters Personal Account.” Fathers Day is marked by asking what is lost forever when a stolen boy returns, in Don't Ask.” In a story for Independence Day, a nine-year-old girls first act of independence is also an act of revenge, in Traitor.” Not all anniversaries are happy occasions and in Was She Wicked? Was She Good?” one family copes with the damage that remains after being victims of a home invasion. A surreal Halloween story, You Have Never Been Here,” asks if the body is the mask we all wear. A Veterans day story, War is Beautiful,” features a soldier in the Vietnam War who befriends a local girlor is she a ghost? The collection ends with a Halloween to Christmas tale, The Christmas Witch,” where a lonely, little girl struggles to survive in a town of children that collect bones.
Holidays are days of honor. These eleven tales, eerie, mysterious, and creepy, honor the human experience of death and redemption. They might keep you up at night, but why not extend the celebration?
Review
"She is a poet of the extremes housed within the human heart, and adapts the fantastic to the pressing needs of the emotional present. . . . M. Rickert has mastered her own distinct creative territory, and has become a formidable writer." Locus Magazine
Synopsis
Torn between struggling to live up to the expectations of being a Modern Woman and ridding herself of the effects of a repressed upbringing, Izzy Jordan would be the first to admit that, at 31, its time to take stock of her life. A long summer holiday on the beautiful island of Corfu is just what Izzy needs, but is she prepared for the romance and the drama? It becomes a decision with consequences that will ensure a holiday no one will forget.
Synopsis
Bogged down under the desire to be a modern woman and the aftershocks of a repressed upbringing, Izzy Jordan is the first to admit that its time to take stock of her life. At 31 she has a teaching career that has given her a strong desire to lock her pupils in the art room and throw away the key. She also has a manipulative mother and an ex-boyfriend whose parting shot was to tell her she was boring in bed. When Izzy is invited to spend the summer on Corfu and is offered the chance of a no-strings-attached vacation romance with the irresistible Theo, what should she do? Just as she thinks shes made up her mind, along comes Mark, whose turbulent past sets in motion a series of dramatic events that will bring near tragedy, profound change, andultimatelyhappiness for Izzy.
About the Author
M. Rickert is the author of the World Fantasy award-winning Map of Dreams, as well as numerous short stories that have been anthologized in several Year's Best Science Fiction and Year's Best Fantasy collections. She lives in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.