More Scary Kisses – Liz Grzyb (ed)
Ticonderoga Publications, 2011
260 pages
RRP: AU$25
ISBN: 978-0-9807813-2-8

Reviewed by Kate Smith

Having absolutely loved Scary Kisses, I approached More Scary Kisses with both anticipation and apprehension.  Scary Kisses was such a wonderful combination of stories, such a different take on the world, snapshots of lives from a different perspective.  Hence  my apprehension.  However I was assured by a friend that More Scary Kisses would not let me down.  That friend was absolutely correct.

More Scary Kisses is a wonderful collection of stories which are both familiar to the reader but with twists on an otherwise expected theme.  ‘Philomena and the Blond God’, ‘The Sword of Darcy’ and ‘The Dark Night of Anton Weiss’ were particular favourites, containing as they did irreverent, unexpected or amusing twists on familiar themes.

The editor, I feel, did exceptionally well in her choice of the tales.  I did not find the stories in More Scary Kisses as challenging as some of those in its predecessor – certain stories in the first anthology required quite a lot of time to process – however this was not a detraction from the new anthology.  Rather, More Scary Kisses was an excellent read to dive in and out of and the stories were just as entertaining and enjoyable as in the first.  The variation in the stories keeps the anthology from becoming repetitive and provides a diversity of refreshing dips into other worlds.

More Scary Kisses is definitely something different to everyday fare.  Too often we accept standard plot lines and concepts when there are writers around us who can take a different view on a standard and inspire something new in the genre.  Making subject matter both familiar in some ways and definitely not in others is a talent of these writers, as well as that of the editor.  More Scary Kisses is fun and something different and well worth a read.  And if you haven’t yet had the great pleasure of Scary Kisses, you desperately need to track yourselves down a copy.  Enjoy!

(note: More Scary Kisses and ticon4.com are both published by Ticonderoga Publications)