Rating: 4 of 5
A collection of five novellas, Bone Swans exceeded my expectations.
I’ll admit to not being the right reader for “Life on the Sun” and “Martyr’s Gem.” And “The Big Bah-Ha” had clowns, need I say more?
But I absolutely lost my mind when I finished “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One,” a fairy-tale retelling based on Rumpelstiltskin tales. It was SO good, an instant favorite — seriously, it’s worth buying this book for that story alone.
The other retelling, “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” a mash-up of “The Pied Piper” and “The Juniper Tree,” was more sinister than, yet as equally fulfilling as “Milkmaid.” That’s saying a lot coming from me because I’m not usually too impressed with the Pied Piper. (See “Some Wait” by Stephen Graham Jones in The Starlit Wood for another exception to my usual meh response to the Piper.) Maurice cracked me up! He reminded me of Templeton from Charlotte’s Web[spoiler]; although, Maurice does end up being more good than bad. Almost an anti-hero[/spoiler].
If you’re looking for stories with a fresh voice, I highly recommend this collection.
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(Review cross-posted on LibraryThing and Goodreads.)
Synopsis: “Climb halfway down the stairs with Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Gary A. Braunbeck, into worlds that occupy the spaces between “here” and “there,” where office workers become little more than scrolls of code and an ordinary man discovers that he has to help reassemble the missing face of God; from battle-scarred veterans who have to protect their village from encroaching spirits to a college experiment that may bring about the end of days, all of these stories feature Braunbeck’s trademark element: an unblinking eye for emotional detail that elevates the subject matter of each piece into the realm of the genuinely literary.” (
Synopsis: “In a spine-tingling new collection, the “unique” (NPR) and “wickedly funny” (New York Times) Helen Phillips offers an idiosyncratic series of “what-ifs” about our fragile human condition…What if your perfect hermaphrodite match existed on another planet? What if you could suddenly see through everybody’s skin to their organs? What if you knew the exact date of your death? What if your city was filled with doppelgängers of you?” (
Fast-paced science fiction best suited for ages 11-17. I found the teens in this book rather boring and mostly interchangeable with one another. The virus was only moderately scary which might have to do with the fact that it’s not given much face time. But the weakest element of the story was the romance between Mia and Brayden. There was no chemistry and it just felt bleh. I would’ve rated the book 3.5 stars had the author left it out completely. On a high note, I enjoyed the “truth” behind the Well’s End plot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first in a trilogy or an ongoing series.