Welcome back to Bite-size Reads, where it’s my final round-up of the dark and haunting tales of African Monsters, edited by Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas.
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Welcome back to Bite-size Reads, where I’m currently enjoying tales collected by Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas. It’s time to be haunted and horrified by some more African Monsters…
Welcome back to Bite-size Reads, my 2022 challenge to read (some of) the amazing anthologies on my shelves. It’s been a long while since Sinopticon, and today I’m on the trail of African Monsters – the second volume of the globe-trotting Fox Spirit Book of Monsters.
One set of books that I failed to keep on top of reviews for this year was the Subjective Chaos shortlist. My focus ended up always being finishing the books on time; reviewing them was a bridge too far. Time to put that right – not least because this one went on to win our Blurred Boundaries category!
Arrah is the heir to two great lines of witchdoctors, but she has no magic of her own. When children begin disappearing, she faces a terrible choice: sacrifice her years for a charlatan’s powers or lose those she loves. It’s no choice at all…
When an alien spacecraft lands in the lagoon off Lagos, the world changes. As the panic-stricken city tears itself apart, three people are chosen to make first contact. They will have to confront their deepest secrets, if they – and the rest of Lagos – are to survive.
I joined Claire and Nikki of Bitches with Books for this month’s Bitches Book Club read.
Zinzi December is a ‘zoo’: she has an animal familiar. Relegated to the violent slums of Zoo City when she is released from jail, she and her Sloth survive on her talent for sensing the invisible threads that bind us to things we’ve lost – retrieving them for a fee. Her only rules: no lost persons cases, no emotional ties. When a client dies unexpectedly, she gets sucked into a case to find one of South Africa’s biggest pop stars, and everything gets very complicated quickly.