Please Look After This Angel: and other winged stories by Tansy Rayner Roberts is a short collection of four short stories that was originally given away to her newsletter subscribers (which is how I got it), then Patreon supporters, and soon will be available for general sale.

I picked this up partly because of my challenge to myself to read 100 short stories by the end of the year, and this little collection happened to be near the top of my iBooks pile of short fiction. It also lured me in by being fairly short, and hence feeling like a less daunting time investment when I'm also in the middle of a novel I don't want to put down for long (stay tuned). As usual, I have written some comments on each story as I've gone along. Because I've been partly using the comments to tweet about the stories as I read them, they may be briefer than usual (but generally longer than the tweeted versions.

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Please Look After This Angel — A story about an ordinary life which happens to intersect with an angel a few times.

The Raven & Her Victory — A creepy, magical, Poe-inspired story about lesbians. I enjoyed it, but wow was the ending creepy and kind of surreal.

The Curse Is Come Upon Me, Cried — A weird story. A blend of fairytale, the modern world, Arthurian themes and horror. Probably my least favourite, although I liked the imps and the idea of maintaining a sense of self when you're invisible.

Of War & Wings — Steampunk angel women fighting off alien invaders in a Blitz-like London (but set earlier than WWII). My absolute favourite story of the collection. Gorgeous and terribly sad. I suspect it's an excellent fit for fans of Roberts' Creature Court trilogy.

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I really enjoyed this collection and I recommend it to all fans of the author's work and to fans of spec fic (more on the fantasy side) stories generally. I especially loved "Of War & Wings" which had a lot of depth in worldbuilding, to make it all the more heartbreaking. I highly recommend picking up a copy of the collection when it shortly becomes available.

4.5 / 5

You can read more reviews on my blog. ( )