Chuck Caruso’s "The Meaning of Blood" promises a descent into a netherworld of blood and perversity, and it delivers on this as well as something even more heinous: the idea that ordinary people crave blood and perversity just as much... Read More

In an early piece in this book of short, connected stories, Caroline Bock establishes a daughter’s reverence for her father: “let me recall the days when I picked tomatoes beside my Pop, and ate one or two directly from the vine at... Read More

Maureen Aitken’s "The Patron Saint of Lost Girls" pretends to be a collection of short stories but is not. Instead, advantages of both short-story and novel formats are fused into a mutation which is neither. By the time this... Read More

Drawing inspiration from the most existentially bored quarters of the sweater-set crowd, the short stories of Virginia Pye’s "Shelf Life of Happiness" are unsettling, sighing laments. They organize church fundraisers and clean their... Read More

"Time and Time Again" collects sixteen of Hugo and Nebula award–winning author Robert Silverberg’s short stories involving time travel. With dazzling prose and original plotlines, Silverberg proves himself to be a master of the... Read More

The characters in Jeremy T. Wilson’s excellent short story collection "Adult Teeth" are all facing significant life changes, and the outcomes are consistently surprising, entertaining, and revealing. In “It Don’t Get No Better Than... Read More

Natalie Sypolt’s "The Sound of Holding Your Breath" finds people on the cusp. Poised on the edge of change, these stories traffic in the ties of duty, trouble, and trauma embedded in the lives of various West Virginians and offer... Read More

In Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer’s "The Water Diviner and Other Stories", Sri Lankans recognize and reckon with each other and their shared history at home and abroad, discovering what connects and divides them. Full of richly drawn... Read More