Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link is her first collection of stories and is available for free (under a Creative Commons license) download at Jelly Ink Press.
The stories included are:
- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
- Water Off a Black Dog's Back
- The Specialist's Hat
- Flying Lessons
- Travels with the Snow Queen
- Vanishing Act
- Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party
- Shoe and Marriage
- Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water
- Louise's Ghost
- The Girl Detective
I'm not going to review each story individually, but instead give my overall impressions of the collection. Well first up I really enjoyed it, and that is of course the most important thing. The stories are all delightfully unpredictable. Many of them have a real creepy sense of "something bad is going to happen", it's a great form of suspense. The natural word that comes to mind is offbeat, but really that's doing the stories a disservice. I think my favourite was probably The Girl Detective, but that may change on another day depending how I am feeling.
The wonderful Magic For Beginners is still my favourite Kelly Link story that I have read, but this collection is definitely worthwhile, and for free what reason do you have not to read them? I definitely want to get hold of the full Magic For Beginners collection now (see, giving away free stuff does create sales!).
