A dream-traveling
boy haunted by a broken girl. A cursed warrior, weary of bloodshed. A
princess who battles dragons in an enchanted slumber. A treacherous
graveyard in the stars. From Bethany A. Jennings—author of
Threadbare and Dragon Lyric—come twelve mesmerizing short works of
poetry and prose that boldly pierce the shadows. Severed Veil
contains a selection of fantasy, sci-fi, and poetry, including
“Dreamskip,” the winner of an honorable mention from the Writers
of the Future Contest in 2018. Illustrated with ethereal pencil
sketches by artist Julia Busko, these tales dance on the delicate
rift between life and death, waking and dreams.
My
Rating: *****
I
love a good short story. I've mentioned before in an earlier review,
that I think short stories can be difficult. You have to have an
entertaining, engaging story with a small word count. It doesn't
sound that hard, but thinking about it, it has to be complete. This
one story may be all you ever see of the story's world. You have to
bring the reader in without spending a lot of time focusing on
worldbuilding, because you're sort of dropping the reader off in the
middle. Needless to say, I'm always impressed when this is pulled off
well, and Bethany A. Jennings was able to do just that with her short
stories in Severed Veil.
I'm
a little bit at a loss of how to review and sum up my thoughts when
it comes to a short story and poetry collection. There's so much to
say, and at the same time I don't want to say too much because I
don't want to spoil anything in these stories. The worlds of these
stories were fascinating, and a few left me wanting to see more of
them – which is both good and bad. Good, because I was pulled into
these stories so easily. Bad, because I was left with questions and
wanting answers. Don't get me wrong, these stories made sense on
their own. I sometimes just find stories where I want to know
everything that's going on in that world, especially when the story
feels like one that could be expanded into something bigger. My
favorite story in Bethany's collection would without a doubt be
“Dreamskip”. This short story just felt so complete and left me
completely satisfied with the ending.
I
also really enjoyed the poetry in this collection as well. I'm
typically not a big poetry person, because frankly, poetry and I are
not friends. I've never had a good grasp of it, and that's something
that frustrates me both as a reader and a writer. I do occasionally
come across poems that I do enjoy, and I'm glad to say that the ones
in Bethany's collection are in that category.
On
one final note, I also want to say that the artwork by Julia Busko
that accompanied the short stories in Severed Veil are
wonderful. You can see an example of two of them up above in my cover
image. Bethany had a giveaway for swag packs for this short story
collection that contained two random artwork pieces (along with other
goodies) from Severed Veil, and I was fortunate enough to be
one of the winners. You'll see the artwork right before the short
story starts, and I found that they were a nice little hint of what
the story would be about.
So
if you're looking for some sci-fi and fantasy short stories to read,
I'd recommend reading Severed Veil.
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