12:01 AM
Vance Holmes
Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales
Stories by Roberta Simpson Brown
Stories by Roberta Simpson Brown
Annotation:
A collection of stories about scary people, haunted places and creepy things.
Recommendation:
Roberta Simpson Brown has every right to call herself Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales. The twenty-three chilling stories in her collection are macabre and marvelous. Well-written and well-paced, each yarn is a quick, five to ten pages in length. Though original, they are patterned in a well-known oral literary tradition.
Roberta Simpson Brown's tales are set in familiar, normal places: living rooms, schoolyards, campgrounds, shops, farm houses. The students, housewives, hotel clerks and other characters in Brown’s stories are all familiar people – but that’s where "normal" ends. Brown's plot-lines each have a bizarre, scary twist or unexpected turn toward horror.
Beware! These cold-blooded tales are not like the slinky vampire romances that currently have so many publishers under a spell. Nor are they the dark, ugly, Stephen King-style stories of rabid dogs and killer clowns. The wonderfully warped stories of Roberta Simpson Brown are thoughtfully constructed in classic formats.
These are good, old-fashioned, great American ghost stories!
Individual readers will no doubt like some selections better than others. My personal favorite is Whispers, the disturbing fable of a little girl who, despite her parents’ wishes, is determined to purchase a pair of evil-looking earrings. Stylistically, I found the subtle strangeness of Sleeping Bags to be particularly effective. The story, about a young woman on a camping trip, has a blend of simplicity and supernatural-ness that put me in the mind of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.
"Be sure to bring your sleeping bag," she said.
Susan looked at the flowers and left them on the seat. She
took the bag and followed Angie up a path lined with stones.
"Everyone is sleeping on the hill tonight," explained Angie.
"You'll see them later."
All of the horror chronicles included in Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales have strong themes. What's more, the gore and ghastliness is never gratuitous. Running throughout Brown’s devilish collection is a solid moral sensibility. Fate delivers a fitting justice to gold-digging girlfriends, nosy neighbors and greedy little boys.
Roberta Simpson Brown has delivered a fine collection of spine-tingling fiction that would be wicked fun to tell around a campfire!
Nomination: Yes
Genre Classification: Supernatural / Horror Title
Roberta Simpson Brown home page
http://www.robertasimpsonbrown.com
Words of a Feather
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs
Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters
Website: How to Write Scary Stories
Website: How to Read a Scary Story Aloud
Posted in: RECOMMENDED READS
