Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

In this collection of career-spanning stories, there’s plenty of early work which offers an interesting window into Bishop’s (The Queen's Price, 2023) stylistic development, along with a generous selection of tales from her current output. The early stories, as unpolished as the author’s introduction implies, still bear the same thematic structures Bishop’s fiction is founded on. There’s also a section explicitly dedicated to fairy-tale retellings, often grim and replete with the trauma of sexual violence and revenge seeking. Some of the stories in sections dedicated to Bishop’s ongoing series work are published here for the first time, including a Lakeside holiday story, “Home for the Howlidays.” Finally, there’s a section of miscellaneous stories—a ghost story, a little postapocalyptic tale, and a story of spacefaring terraformers. Fans looking for a grab bag of Bishop’s work will certainly be satisfied, and the volume might well be an interesting place to start for new readers, thanks to its expansive range. As long as the reader is prepared for the ways Bishop’s stories use sexual violence, revenge, and rigid gender expectations, they’re a worthwhile diversion, with engaging characters and background worlds.