Title: Five Stories Short: A Supernatural Quintet

Author: Karen Black

Genre: Paranormal / Fantasy

 

As the title suggests, Black’s book is a collection of five imaginative stories about the supernatural and its positive or negative impact on seemingly ordinary lives.

The majority involve actions from beyond the grave. Three of the tales conclude with paranormal acts involving retribution, and all contain quite weighty issues.

Indeed, Black’s plotting is ambitious. She takes inventive, mystical flights of fancy while ensuring the human protagonists remain grounded. There is a keen sense of Black wanting to share and involve the reader in this fluid narrative journey.

Additionally, her writing is devoid of gratuitous, gory horror, which, paradoxically, makes Five Stories Short gently enjoyable and intriguing to read.

Four of the collection could be described as modern morality tales with subjective messages but, primarily, it can be leveled that Black’s narratives owe more to the genre of magical realism.

The opener, The Legacy, demonstrates this by juxtaposing prosaic, everyday reality and supernatural fantasy elements that slot with accepted normality into the domestic framework of daily life.

In The Legacy, Lydia, a middle-aged woman who is a skilled tarot reader with psychic abilities, leaves prison for a crime she did not commit but one that has evil repercussions from the spirit world for her family.

Black credibly portrays the bond between Lydia, her daughter Ava, and her grandson, Graham. She writes straightforward, uncluttered sentences in a lean style without pretension. However, her dialogue is authentically chatty and there is a sub-textual, authorial warmth to her words.

The first three tales involve profound, life-changing reveals that affect or motivate the paranormal activity. These revelations are either from a character’s backstory or part of the present narrative and are often disclosed in a detached, matter-of-fact tone.

Occasionally, this pragmatism leads to a lack of individuality and emotional depth in her characters and narrative. Nonetheless, her stories draw knowingly on occult tropes, which lend them a reassuring, familiar feel to fans of the genre, although the unusual directions that her plots take afford contrast and curiosity.

Laughing Hills has a fairytale vibe with a dark heart and some enchanting imagery. From the beginning, it’s subtly obvious, despite a couple of twists, that the villain will receive their comeuppance. However, this does not spoil the enjoyment, as in common with all of the tales, Black dispenses spooky revenge in a creative, unexpected way.

Mommy, Look! is possibly the weaker of the quintet. It presents as underdeveloped despite the introduction of a criminal tangent. Again, though, the main premise of the story hinges on unearthly assistance, which leads to a heartwarming conclusion.

The Ancient Ones is a noticeable, macabre departure, darker in tone. Black’s arcane symbolism of the raven and lion gives the impression of a twisted Aesop’s fable.

Her writing is more controlled and focused in this penultimate tale. Veronica’s character is immediately creepy despite her supposed loveliness. The tale also varies slightly in form, with the supernatural being used for an oddly malignant purpose that differs from the objective of the other tales.

In her final story, The Last Act, Black returns to type, delivering much-needed spectral reckoning to a deeply unpleasant character. She perfectly conjures an old theater’s eerie, ghostly atmospherics and its owner, Carolyn’s, single-minded, if rather naïve, personality.

Black has nicely presented and collated the collection, and little motifs and tentative threads of similarity thread through the narratives, and, overall, it’s well-edited.

Five Stories Short: A Supernatural Quintet is a cozy collection of engaging paranormal mysteries. Light, charming, and readable, Black’s tales provide a sweetly satisfying slice of fantasy escapism liberally sprinkled with a few surprises.

 

 

This Editorial Review was written by the Book Review Directory staff. To receive a similarly honest, professional review for one of your own books, click here.