There’s nothing I love more than a haunting little horror anthology—especially when it introduces me to an author with whom I was previously unfamiliar! Dead Girls Don’t Love by Sarah Hans surprised and delighted me from the first story onward. The collection brings together a dozen different tales that show an impressive range of style, genre, and source material. If you’re already looking for some reading material to get you into the Halloween spirit, Dead Girls Don’t Love would be a great place to start!
The one element that brings the twelve wildly different stories in this anthology together is that each one is told from an unexpected perspective. Whether the protagonists are the monsters themselves or merely members of a group that has been traditionally underrepresented in horror fiction, the unique voice of each story lets you know that you’re in for something new. This theme is clear right off the bat in the first story, “Alive in the Wolf’s Belly,” which describes the transformative experience of being eaten by a wolf from the point of view of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.
One of the most haunting stories in this collection is “The Cold Earth.” In this dark tale about domestic abuse, you’ll find yourself rooting for the creepy skeleton bent on revenge that’s buried in the backyard. The following story, “Iceheart,” is probably the one most likely to get your blood pumping. Plot-wise, it’s the most traditional horror story of the lot, but the combination of setting and characters is one I’ve never come across before. Daniel and Lola are part of a mining crew in space composed of members from various Native American tribes. When they are sent to investigate an abandoned outpost on a moon called Inyan, they discover one of the most dreaded creatures in Native lore: the wendigo.
A handful of the stories have a very Lovecraft vibe, although I’m sure that the notoriously close-minded author would roll in his grave at reading them. “Shadows of the Darkest Jade” is about two Buddhist monks who travel into rural China to spread the dharma. Instead, they discover a cursed village whose inhabitants worship a terrifying god. “Saffron Skies” continues the odd juxtaposition of Lovecraftian horror and Buddhist monks, this time throwing in a bit of steampunk, as well. Dorje is an airship captain hired to transport the Dalai Lama and a handful of other Tibetan monks. But as they fly across the ocean pursued by Chinese warships, they discover a sunken city below them, with strange horrors rising from the deep. The penultimate story in the collection, “When the Stars Are Right,” has more overt allusions to Lovecraft. Driven by strange dreams, an American mathematician travels to rural Russia searching for answers about the village where he was born and what connection it has to the eldritch god Nyarlathotep. Along the way, he unexpectedly finds love.
“When the Stars Are Right” sets the tone for the final story in the collection, “Dead Girls Don’t Love.” This one turns out to be another love story that also has a surprisingly uplifting ending, although it starts off quite grim. Cupcake is a zombie laborer, forced to till the earth at the behest of her living masters. Such mindless tasks are well-suited to the practically mindless, but when Princess arrives at the farmhouse, something awakens inside of Cupcake that she hasn’t felt since she was alive.
This is more than I usually write for a collection of short stories, but each piece in this anthology stood out so much that I feel like I want to give them all their own paragraph. But if you want to know more about the rest, you can go read the collection for yourself. You can look for Dead Girls Don’t Love at your local retailer, or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process by clicking this Bookshop.org affiliate link.