What do you think?
Rate this book
Who Lost, I Found: Stories
Who Lost, I Found is a collection of Black Southern speculative tales from author Eden Royce, who weaves together subgenres like a sweetgrass Southern Gothic, weird fiction, dark fantasy, and folk horror. All inspired by her Gullah Geechee heritage and its cautionary stories, and the hoodoo that runs throughout, whether everyone acknowledges it or not.
An old woman can wake the dead, for a time, bringing families peace when they've been denied justice. An elder on death row chooses her last meal, and it isn't on the menu. A witch learns the real reason behind her ex-husband's death and decides to do a little hexing of her own. A girl gets more than she bargains for when she sneaks into a room at a historic property . . .
These are stories written like the South beautiful, dangerous, haunting. Giving the South its due in speculative fiction for reaching further than many realize and for leaving an indelible stain.
An old woman can wake the dead, for a time, bringing families peace when they've been denied justice. An elder on death row chooses her last meal, and it isn't on the menu. A witch learns the real reason behind her ex-husband's death and decides to do a little hexing of her own. A girl gets more than she bargains for when she sneaks into a room at a historic property . . .
These are stories written like the South beautiful, dangerous, haunting. Giving the South its due in speculative fiction for reaching further than many realize and for leaving an indelible stain.
- GenresShort StoriesHorror
182 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2023
4 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Eden Royce
60 books382 followersEden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina now living in Southeast England. She’s a Shirley Jackson Award winner and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for her adult fiction, which has appeared in a variety of print and online publications.
Her books for young readers have received Walter Dean Myers Award Honors, and been recognized as a Bram Stoker Award winner, an Andre Norton Nebula Award Finalist, an Ignyte Award winner, and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner for outstanding children’s literature.
Find her on social media via her LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/edenroyce.
Sign up for her newsletter: https://edenroyce.eo.page/sbtyt
Her books for young readers have received Walter Dean Myers Award Honors, and been recognized as a Bram Stoker Award winner, an Andre Norton Nebula Award Finalist, an Ignyte Award winner, and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner for outstanding children’s literature.
Find her on social media via her LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/edenroyce.
Sign up for her newsletter: https://edenroyce.eo.page/sbtyt
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 13, 2024
Eden Royce is one of those authors who will never release a book I won't read. I am five for five with her two middle grade titles and three adult short story collections of which Who Lost, I Found from Broken Eye Books is the latest.
If Royce's MG fiction centres girls and women in sync with the other worldly, her adult stories cedes ground to the monsters. These are the women tentacled who breathe underwater, who strip skin, whose wails are a call to be answered. Well, that sounds nice (I love monstrous women) but the truer word is that there is no real dividing line between the two. They are sisters of the same womb, often kin in the same body.
The reader can't tag them as good or bad and predict how they will act accordingly. The only surety is that they have power. The power to love, heal and protect; the power to weave and destroy; the power to command and the power to weather hurricanes; the power to party to the dead; the power to be vulnerable and to seek purpose, with the earth their companion, always.
The stories are set in Charleston, South Carolina and inhabit land and sea as part of the same realm in Gulla Geechee soil. They operate at different levels of myth (not as lie but truths told) from the awe-filling Mami Wata stepping on shore to claim her own, to a djinn who grants wishes via hair braiding patterns, to the ride or bestie who will help you to bury that body.
I can't name a favourite but the most unexpected story for me was "Don't You Weep" about a woman prison guard and her relationship with an elder inmate on death row for killing her abusive husband. Everything about what they were to each other was wrenching but there's a BBQ restaurant scene that raised the hair off my skin and reminded me of Myriam J A Chancy stating in an interview that evidence suggests the word "barbecue" might have African origins.
From hurricanes to grapefruit vines better than any guard dog it's all here in stories woven in sweetgrass slick with blood. It's the horror and beauty of life with the dead only a favorite food offering away.
If Royce's MG fiction centres girls and women in sync with the other worldly, her adult stories cedes ground to the monsters. These are the women tentacled who breathe underwater, who strip skin, whose wails are a call to be answered. Well, that sounds nice (I love monstrous women) but the truer word is that there is no real dividing line between the two. They are sisters of the same womb, often kin in the same body.
The reader can't tag them as good or bad and predict how they will act accordingly. The only surety is that they have power. The power to love, heal and protect; the power to weave and destroy; the power to command and the power to weather hurricanes; the power to party to the dead; the power to be vulnerable and to seek purpose, with the earth their companion, always.
The stories are set in Charleston, South Carolina and inhabit land and sea as part of the same realm in Gulla Geechee soil. They operate at different levels of myth (not as lie but truths told) from the awe-filling Mami Wata stepping on shore to claim her own, to a djinn who grants wishes via hair braiding patterns, to the ride or bestie who will help you to bury that body.
I can't name a favourite but the most unexpected story for me was "Don't You Weep" about a woman prison guard and her relationship with an elder inmate on death row for killing her abusive husband. Everything about what they were to each other was wrenching but there's a BBQ restaurant scene that raised the hair off my skin and reminded me of Myriam J A Chancy stating in an interview that evidence suggests the word "barbecue" might have African origins.
From hurricanes to grapefruit vines better than any guard dog it's all here in stories woven in sweetgrass slick with blood. It's the horror and beauty of life with the dead only a favorite food offering away.
December 26, 2023
This was easily a five star read! I can't say that I've enjoyed a short story collection this much in a long time. I started to make a list of favorites, but honestly, I don't think that I can give a single story in this collection less than 4 stars. That is a rarity in collections, for me as a reader anyway. I live in North Carolina but Charleston is one of my favorite cities in the U.S. I'm happy that these stories were set there and describe the food and culture so vividly. It brought me back to Charleston!
This collection is a mix of magical realism, fantasy, and satire (realism). I absolutely loved the idea of a seaside house that grew crab legs and moved away from the sea during a hurricane. I loved the ghost stories and humor and sadness that many of these stories brought. It's like Eden Royce created her own southern mythology with these stories. I'm listing the ones that I gave 5 stars below but the rest were 4 stars:
"Every Good-Bye Ain't Gone"
"Sweetgrass Blood"
"Folk"
"The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm"
"Room and Board Included, Demonolgy Extra"
"Hands Made for Weaving, with Nails Sharp as Claws"
"Miss Beulah's Braiding and Life Changing Salon"
"Don't You Weep"
"The Salt Cure"
"For Southern Girls when the Zodiac Signs Ain't Near Enough"
Even though my only child is an adult now, I might read some of her kid's books. I really hope that some time in the future Royce will write novels or novellas for adults, because I would read them all.
This collection is a mix of magical realism, fantasy, and satire (realism). I absolutely loved the idea of a seaside house that grew crab legs and moved away from the sea during a hurricane. I loved the ghost stories and humor and sadness that many of these stories brought. It's like Eden Royce created her own southern mythology with these stories. I'm listing the ones that I gave 5 stars below but the rest were 4 stars:
"Every Good-Bye Ain't Gone"
"Sweetgrass Blood"
"Folk"
"The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm"
"Room and Board Included, Demonolgy Extra"
"Hands Made for Weaving, with Nails Sharp as Claws"
"Miss Beulah's Braiding and Life Changing Salon"
"Don't You Weep"
"The Salt Cure"
"For Southern Girls when the Zodiac Signs Ain't Near Enough"
Even though my only child is an adult now, I might read some of her kid's books. I really hope that some time in the future Royce will write novels or novellas for adults, because I would read them all.
November 20, 2023
A necessary voice
This collection of stores was very fulfilling, like a kaleidoscope of spirit, Gullah, indigo & water. I fell so satisfied after reading this collection. I can't wait for more from Eden.
This collection of stores was very fulfilling, like a kaleidoscope of spirit, Gullah, indigo & water. I fell so satisfied after reading this collection. I can't wait for more from Eden.
January 6, 2024
All of the major SFF and horror awards need to just stop in their tracks now and give Eden Royce all of the prizes. This collection had a huge impact on me as a huge, huge fan of Eden Royce, whose prose is like no other. "Who Lost, I Found" is also a love letter to Eden's Gullah Geechee heritage, to Hoodoo, and something that her adult readership has been waiting for. She takes the Hoodoo here and cranks it up to ten. The stories were so satisfying that I wanted to swim in them and luxuriate in her prose.
The stories hit hard, especially the ones that centered on women achieving well-deserved revenge for wrongs done to them or their loved ones. I can't express more about how much this collection is just one of the absolute best, so I'm going to urge folks to run to the bookstore or online and buy a copy to support this marvellous author whose works I cannot get enough of!
The stories hit hard, especially the ones that centered on women achieving well-deserved revenge for wrongs done to them or their loved ones. I can't express more about how much this collection is just one of the absolute best, so I'm going to urge folks to run to the bookstore or online and buy a copy to support this marvellous author whose works I cannot get enough of!
January 26, 2024
Absolutely amazing. Every story had me hooked. Royce has done brilliantly in crafting stories and characters that hold their own hoodoo and strength, even if they don't know or understand how, using her Gullah background and the rich ancestral history that will forever keep giving. From the soil to the sea, with spirits, life, and death indelibly intertwined, these stories are captivating and moving.
January 20, 2026
Powerful & varied collection of short stories that resonate with black spiritual practices even if you aren’t Gullah. Once I got over the different voices and writing style from the first few stories the rest weren’t as jarring in their nuance & narrative shifts.
March 16, 2024
Loved it!
July 2, 2024
Royce does it again!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews