I read this short story last night and I thought it was entertaining. As with every story though, there were things I enjoyed and things I did not.

I enjoyed the imagination and creativity that went into this tale. It's not exactly an original premise, but how many original premises are left? The prose was a bit dense and took a bit more from the reader than your usual horror story. I liked that too-somewhat. I also thought the character development was very good. That's something some authors cannot create in a short tale like this one. I enjoyed the opening scenes on stage and in the bookshop as well.

Now, for what I did not like. I felt that that the relationship between the bookseller and the young woman accelerated too quickly-it didn't ring true for me at all.(I realize that it was more of an older geeky "guy is smitten" with a young woman type thing, but it still didn't work for me.)

Regarding the dense prose I mentioned above-it did slow down the pacing. I'm a fast reader, but with dense prose, I need to slow down and make sure I'm getting all that the author intended. When it's a fast paced tale,(as this one becomes towards the end), I'm reluctant to do that. This author uses some words that aren't real words (and I'm fine with that), but also uses alternate spellings for words-like loth for loathe. I have no problem with that either, but it did contribute to slowing the pacing down a bit. I don't think all of that was needed and I don't think it contributed much to the story, to be honest. I would have preferred to rip right through that portion of the story without slowing down or being tossed out of it by a strangely spelled or made up word.

I received this story free with a promise to review honestly, and that is what I have done. I will probably look for more stories from this author in the future because I did enjoy this one.
**This review also appears at the Ravenous Reads blog here: http://ravenousreads.blogspot.com/ ( )