- austrianspencer
Picnic in the Graveyard - edited by Brhel and Sullivan
This Anthology is pretty strong, I have to say, straight up, there are some great names on the TOC, most of which deliver great shorts, and the representation for LGTBQ in the book is fantastic (I do look), and also there are enough strong female leads. I am probably going to be the only one that says this, given the reaction to the cover from Twitter upon its release, but I actually didn’t like the cover. At all. That’s personal preference, but yeah, It isn’t a cover that makes me want to read what’s inside. The TOC however, well, that’s a total enticement.
The stand-out short, for me, I’ll say straight up front, was Nick Kolakowski’s “Why Bob Lee came back”, just fantastic, that’s the second time I’ve read an anthology and his story has leapt to the fore, I’ll be buying more of his stuff this summer. Everything about his short – from voice to presentation, to the killer first line – Nick, you nailed it. Great stuff.
Most of the shorts were good, another noteworthy addition was from Catherine McCarthy, again bringing her distinctive touch to the party (the queen of atmosphere, you can almost touch and smell the chapel, the light dappling through the windows…), and I discovered some new (for me) authors I’ll be checking out in the coming weeks. There were a couple of shorts that didn't resound with me, but the writing, on the whole, was good, very little to find fault with here.
Overall I think this was a strong anthology, I’m giving it 4 out of 5 ⭐ ‘s, and have some more names to invest my money in.
You can buy Picnic... by clicking on the appropriate Amazon link, below:
