Short Stories I Read In October...

It’s the twenty-ninth of November, so it’s time to talk about the short stories, miscellaneous posts, and podcast episodes I read or listened to in October.

Juvenilia by Lavie Tidhar (Uncanny; Issue Thirty-Six, September/October 2020)

The first story I read in October was Juvenilia by Lavie Tidhar. I really enjoyed this story. Coming on the heels of reading Mexican Gothic, many aspects of Juvenilia reminded me of that story. There was a little mystery as well as some genuinely creepy moments—and the atmosphere and way the story went reminded me of that achieved by Mexican Gothic—even though it wasn’t inherently a horror story. It was kind of a house story too, given that the setting primarily took place at a single property—Wildfell Hall—which was an integral part of the plot. It was well-developed with an eerie atmosphere and an equally odd set of rules the character was asked to follow. Overall, Juvenilia was a fantastic story. 

Hearts in the Hard Ground by G.V. Anderson (Tor.com; September 9, 2020)

Feeling in the mood for another house/ghost story, I decided to check out something that had been on my radar since September. Hearts in the Hard Ground is an incredibly somber tale of a haunted house and the woman who moved-in. There were themes of loss and grief, and it was in the form of the character’s mother having suffered from an illness before passing away. Fiona’s story was an excellent read. Her journey was one filled with memoires and ghosts, as she tried to make a home of the house she’d moved in to. In a lot of ways, this was a story about navigating grief and about places being haunted as well as people being haunted by their memories: of what’s happened and the choices they did or didn’t make. It was about coming to terms with and accepting the “would have” and the “could have,” and the secrets and fears. And while some of the ghosts were charming, the house, for the most part, was suitably frightening with spirits that refused to—or simply couldn’t—rest. 

From around the web…

• A Children’s Tale for All Ages: Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker (Alex Brown; Tor.com, October 6, 2020)
• A Question of Horror: Stephen Graham Jones’ Night of the Mannequins (Tobias Carroll; Tor.com, October 8, 2020)
• Our Opinions Are Correct episode #68
• Fangirl Happy Hour episode #131