Amuse-Bouches

by Anne Billson

A demon with a taste for Dry Martinis. An inexplicable pregnancy attracts unwanted attention. A serial killer targets film critics. A woman gives up life in the fast lane to join a sinister cult in Croydon. A fashion blogger is trapped in Paris when the city is overrun by zombies.

Five short tales of the unexpected from the author of horror novels Suckers, Stiff Lips and The Ex, described by Salman Rushdie as 'a superb satirist'.

ebook

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

ANNE BILLSON is a film critic, novelist, photographer, style icon, wicked spinster, evil feminist, and international cat-sitter who has lived in London, Tokyo, Paris and Croydon, and now lives in Belgium. She likes frites, beer and chocolate.

Her books include SUCKERS (an upwardly mobile vampire novel), STIFF LIPS (a Notting Hill ghost story), THE EX (a supernatural detective story) and THE COMING THING (Rosemary's Baby meets Bridget Jones) as well as several works of non-fiction, including BILLSON FILM DATABASE, BREAST MAN: A CONVERSATION WITH RUSS MEYER, and monographs on the films THE THING and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

Her latest book is CATS ON FILM, the definitive work of feline film scholarship.

She sometimes writes about film for the Guardian, and is currently working on a screenplay and a sequel to her vampire novel, SUCKERS. She has three blogs: multiglom.com (the Billson Blog), catsonfilm.net (a blog about cats in the cinema), and lempiredeslumieres.com (photographs of Belgian beer, bars and sunsets).

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A handful of entertaining short stories. One would later be expanded into the novel The Coming Thing, but works well as a fast-paced, funny extract, and doesn't necessarily need the explanation provided by the novel.
Sunshine is a lot of fun and was the one story I wished were longer, and Paris When It Sizzles gets some mileage out of the twist of a zombie apocalypse as recounted by a fashion journalist.
The only one I wasn't sure about was the tweet-thread #THEPSYCHOMURDERS. The plot, about a murderous director taking revenge on a film critic, is interesting but it felt it was a little cramped into the Twitter format.
But overall good fun and great value.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really entertaining and accomplished collection of short horror stories that reminded me of the pleasure that can come from a well told short as opposed to a novel.
Whilst the genre is definitely horror, there is a tonne of satire and black humour mixed in (as well as some slapstick) all of which works perfectly. Fans of Billson's excellent novels will definitely enjoy the collection, but anyone who likes the horror genre will find something to enjoy here.
My personal favourites were 'Paris When It Sizzles' which offers an enjoyable and stylish antidote to the normal po-faced, survivalist zombie claptrap; and the brilliantly conceived 'Born Again'.