A beautiful collection of supernatural short stories. Craig Laurence Gidney covers a refreshingly wide range of eras and locations with his fiction, and integrates a wide variety of real-world and supernatural elements into his stories, from traditional African folklore, Greek mythology, and old-fashioned ghost-stories of the American southern tradition. The language Gidney uses in his tales is exotic, sensual, and evocative, creating an illusory, dream-like atmosphere for his tales of struggle, corruption, redemption, and transformation. I would compare his work in some ways to Anne Rice and Tanith Lee; not precisely horror, fantasy, erotica, or historical drama, but a well constructed blend of them all. Magic Realism may be a fitting label for it, if it helps readers and fans of the genre to find this unique voice. ( )