Paisley’s tales shine when they take a sensitive approach to psychological horror, but readers may find that some scenes...
Age-old acts of violence are monstrously reimagined in a transgressive set of stories that aims to haunt its readers.
Paisley’s collection is a short, sharp shock, coming in at just under 200 pages in length. It’s carved into three sections, each containing three stories, followed by one standalone novella. The sections—“Divine,” “In,” and “Essence”—have a central theme, examined in wicked ways. The prologue, “Abandon All Ye Who Enter,” primes the reader for the horrors ahead, which feature worlds that live in the “sensorium” and “imaginarium.” The former is “contemptuous of time,” and the physical and emotional pain that the characters endure is immediate and ongoing—and reactivated once read. The latter “entangles time.” These warnings act as a theme for the collection: “Suffering transmutes to ecstasy.” The first section, “Divine,” examines the paths and outcomes of familial violence, best exemplified by “The Great Event,” which acts as a twisted creation story, drawing from ancient Greek mythology into a dubiously spiritual present. “In” examines the relationship between the living and the dead and features a standout story, “The Metaphor of the Lakes,” in which a ghostly Gracie diarizes her small world with creativity and heart toward a devastating conclusion. Finally, “Essence” examines the overlap of violence and pleasure and a longing for freedom. “Mary Alice in the Mirror” is a highlight, with one of the collection’s arguably brighter endings, telling a tale of two children trying to liberate a woman trapped behind glass. The final novella, “The Life of Cherry,” charts mythic maternal violence in an attempt to converge various themes that previous stories raise.
Over the course of this collection, Paisley’s heightened, lyrical prose and occult-ish imagery strengthen the tales’ self-contained worlds; they are especially successful in works that have a strong emotional core. “In” contains the strongest stories in the book, innovatively exploring the limitations between the living and the dead. One of its tales, “Nancy & Her Man,” in which a woman visits a long-deceased companion to treat him to an annual day out, will linger with readers long after it’s over. “Fever Visions” is an equally haunting work in which a child experiences her mother’s sickness in Blakean detail: “I saw a great many human bodies that were misformed and bent into hideous…shapes, and they were operating strange, ancient-looking machines.” The aforementioned “The Metaphor of the Lakes” employs notably vivid prose as its protagonist discovers her fate: “As soon as my feet touched beyond the threshold, I found myself, along with my brother, in a vast wintry field, its snowy expanses so blindingly white that they were actually a kind of blue.” However, although several of the stories here strive to balance the elevated supernatural ideas introduced in the prologue, they also get bogged down by their accounts of the baser impulses of humanity, which the author paints in broad, violent strokes that may turn the stomachs of even the most seasoned readers of the horror genre.
Paisley’s tales shine when they take a sensitive approach to psychological horror, but readers may find that some scenes feel excessive.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781952600555
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Whiskey Tit
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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