The best Short Stories out this February: No And Other Love Stories By Kirsty Logan, I
No And Other Love Stories By Kirsty Logan (Harvill Secker £16.99, 197pp)
No And Other Love Stories is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Love is a dangerous emotion in Logan’s blood-soaked stories, as it trembles on the verge of obsession and bites with sharp teeth into tender flesh.
Unafraid of the visceral, and happy to reach into the darker chambers of the heart, Logan’s fantasies – which take place in Victorian parlours, medieval convents and modern high schools – are unsettling and addictive, glistening with transgressive thrills and erotic appetites.
The opener, Piglet, is set in a butcher’s shop, where the attraction between a man with a cleaver and a woman with a taste for display takes place between neatly labelled cuts of meat.
Elsewhere, we meet a succubus, a husband who’s more beloved once he’s dead, and a cannibalistic woman, who’s ‘eaten the parts she likes . . .’
I Hope You’re Happy By Marni Appleton (Indigo Press £12.99, 288pp)
Snarly emotions, bad relationships and soul-destroying jobs play havoc in the lives of the young women in these stories.
The characters may stumble into horror-tinged scenarios, but the storytelling is sharp, darkly funny and deft.
Tke Under The Circumstances heads off on a school trip to Athens with a gaggle of teenagers, drunk on cheap wine and happy to judge perceived misdemeanors.
There’s the creepy audition for a play called Intimacy, and a mum and daughter contretemps where love and disdain collide in Road Trip.
Frail Little Embers By Fija Callaghan (Neem Tree £9.99, 240pp)
The 21 tales here are simply told, dusted with magic and occasionally veer into cliche, but, as the title of the collection suggests, they are each a small kindling of kindness in a world that looks increasingly harsh and dark.
In Callaghan’s folkloric world, sweetshop toffees conjure dreams of lost love, evoke childhood memories and mend bitter words (Spinning Sugar); girls playfully embrace their supernatural destinies in black pointed hats, chanting made-up spells (Waking The Witch).
Meanwhile, an unhappy man is prompted to take ‘a shot at real life’ by the ghost that haunts the bookshop he works in (Life, Death, And Other Complications) as a tricky genie grants the best of outcomes to a caring father in Last Wish.