Night Shade: Gothic Tales by Women

From a housewife with morphing hands to a teenage girl who communes with La Noche, this audacious collection showcases 16 eerie, otherworldly tales by talented women writers. Contributors include Terri de la Peña, Ruthann Robson, Susanne Sturgis, and Barbara Wilson, among others.

Amazon.com Review

Gothic fiction transforms normality--the supernatural becomes the everyday, human fears are exaggerated, familiar landscapes are turned into places that are strange and bizarre. Female writers have inhabited this landscape for generations. Mary Shelley, Anne Rice, Angela Carter are just three of the more famous dark divas. Now some less well-known voices have their say in Night Shade: Gothic Tales by Women. The 17 short stories take place in everyday settings--contemporary houses, a bar, a veterinary hospital. Yet in this collection, the familiar is subverted. In Roz Warren's "The Birthday Present," a quite ordinary young woman is given a special gift on her 25th birthday--the powers of shapeshifting. When she falls in love with a married man, Liza morphs into a body that this man will find irresistible. Continuing with the theme of metamorphosis, Lisa D. Williamson's "The Existential Housewife" is the story of a frustrated homemaker who develops the ability to transform her hands into household objects. As Mel's boredom and frustration with her domestic confines intensifies, her hands take on more sinister characteristics. Her fingers "morphed into sharp, curved blades, deadly looking files and long, pointed knives." Her husband will do well to watch his back!Night Shade is a melting pot of the erotic, the supernatural, and the gloriously gory. Fans of Gothic fiction will eat it up. --Naomi Gesinger

From Publishers Weekly

Evidently the editors of this anthology define "gothic" as stories of the supernatural. As such, however, most of these 17 stories fall flat, for they lack the frissons of fear and suspense so necessary to the genre. Also, few of the selections fit the editors' stated theme of transformation. The stories themselves are competently written, and readers will find some satisfaction in the sheer variety of these dark tales, some of which edge into the (primarily lesbian) erotic. Subjects range from the empowerment of a Scarlett O'Hara-like Southern belle through voodoo-induced lycanthropy (Diane DeKalb-Rittenhouse's "Femme Coverte") to the romance of an unwed, pregnant, Hispanic teen with a shape-shifting witch-dog (Terri de la Pe?a's "La Noche"). The better stories are the most unusual. Joyce Wagner's "Newtime Cowboy" succeeds as an amusing, if obvious, tale about a Hollywood superstar who changes into a strip of film. Meredith Baird imagines a deformed child's strange symbiosis with her mother in "Breech Birth." Jean Stewart's strong characterization of humans and dogs drives the plot of "Feeding the Dark," in which a tough policewoman finds true love with a leather-clad goddess when she joins a pack of canine vigilantes. With the exception of Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman's "Luella Miller"Aa fine New England yarn first published in 1903Athe stories are previously unpublished works from contemporary writers. At least 12 of the 17 authors (including the editors, who have each included a story of her own) have appeared in Brownworth's earlier anthologies. Considering the number of women writing supernatural fiction these days, perhaps this uninspired volume would have been better served by dipping into a broader pool of contributors. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This follow-up to the anthology Night Bites: Vampire Stories by Women (LJ 2/1/96) features 17 stories of the supernatural, all but one of which (Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman's "Luella Miller," 1903) are by contemporary authors. As the subtitle suggests, many of these stories have a feminist slant. One, Jean Stewart's "Feeding the Dark," has a strong anti-male, pro-lesbian theme, but this extremist view is not prevalent in most of the collection. Several selections, such as Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse's "Femme Coverte" and Lisa D. Williamson's "Existential Housewife," show the difficulties faced by women as the result of society's restrictions and expectations. Others, like Joanne Dahme's "Creepers" and Victoria A. Brownworth's "Day of the Dead," are wonderfully scary stories. Toni Brown's "The Acolyte" gives a neat twist to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. For the most part, this is an excellent anthology of well-written stories, many of which would appeal to readers of either sex.APatricia Altner, Information Seekers, Bowie, MD Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

With the aid of a coeditor, Victoria Brownworth follows Night Bites: Vampire Stories by Women (1996) with a second collection of women's stories of the eerie and half human. Especially charged are tales recalling myths and recasting them in contemporary molds; for instance, Barbara Wilson's "Silkie" provides readers a delightful encounter with a half seal, half woman as seen by a modern woman who may be half mad with grief and loss. Also notable is Susanna Sturgis' "The Vengeance of Epona," which is full of the lore and the love of horses--not to mention transformation, revenge, and eroticism. In the world of these stories, transformation from the known to the unknown is normal, and shape-shifting is just another way to travel. Fans of the supernatural will be happily turning the pages as the suspense builds and their imaginations unfurl. Whitney Scott

From Kirkus Reviews

The co-editors of Out for More Blood: Tales of Malice and Retaliation by Women (not reviewed) present 17 gothic tales by women following in the footsteps of Mary Shelley, Daphne du Maurier, and other mistresses of the macabre. Most of the selections have modern settings and center on such familiar subjects as shapeshifting, immortality, ``otherness,'' keeping the soul intact, and the general human desire to experience the supernatural. Strong entries include Lisa D. Williamson's ``The Existential Housewife,'' about a depressed, 40ish, weight-gaining mother who finds her hands morphing into the oddest things: hair gel, a blue-black swastika tattoo, martini olives on a toothpick, phlegm, a pincushion, etc. Susan Raffo's ``Apritif'' chronicles a truly weird sexual encounter: a woman in a bar removes her blue eye and hands it to her pick-up, who strokes and rubs it while she orgasms and the lidless eye winks at him. The sole reprint is ``Luella Miller,'' a women's magazine story written by Mary Wilkins-Freeman nearly 150 years ago that scrutinizes the role of gossip in a village where death and fear intertwine. In Redding's brilliant ``Mud,'' the house of a man choked to death with the eponymous substance gives birth to a squishy golem made of same. None of the stories quite matches the glorious stylishness of Angela Carter, still our supreme modern gothicist, but they provide plenty of good reading. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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