Night Shade: Gothic Tales by Women

by Judith M. Redding (Editor)

From a housewife with morphing hands to a teenage girl who communes with La Noche, this audacious collection showcases 16 eerie, otherworldly tales by talented women writers. Contributors include Terri de la Peña, Ruthann Robson, Susanne Sturgis, and Barbara Wilson, among others.

Genres: Horror

250 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 1999

Reviews

[Jeannie Sloan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprising good,solid book.Most of the stories were well written with well fleshed out characters.One of the things I liked so much about it was that for the most part all of the main protagonists were women.There was also many stories about women who love other women without being sexually explicit.I am not a big fan of graphic sexual content,straight or Lesbian, unless it is really called for. I would rather leave that to the imagination.Just like graphic violence.There were a few men in the tales but not in very prominent places.This is a book written by women for women but I think that men would really like it too if they are sensitive to the differences between the sexes.
The authors were very gifted in piecing out the subtleties of the emotions of the women.
All of the stories were good with some magnificent works scattered throughout the book.
I highly recommend this book for women and men both.

[Sucre · Rating 3 out of 5]

a super mixed bag of stories but there were a few standouts that make me feel comfortable giving it 3 stars overall. I'm not sure I'd recommend this collection to people who truly want a gothic time, as many stories didn't feel "gothic" in any way. I was also surprised by just how much animals played a part - by my count, out of 17 stories, 6 of them had to do with animals and shapeshifting into animals in some way, with a 7th having to do with freeing animals.

the stories I liked were "Creepers" by Joanna Dahme (this one did feel very gothic - little ghost girls and spooky ivy taking over a home), "Aperitif" by Susan Raffo (this one got points for being just flat-out weird, though it isn't gothic at all. the author's note at the end was cute), "Silkie" by Barbara Wilson (lesbian selkie love story!), and "Vengeance of Epona" by Susanna Sturgis (having a fat MC in a 90s story collection who likes being fat and calls out other people for being shitty about it was really surprising and cool to see. this one is also sapphic but not super gothic).

the truly terrible ones were "Femme Coverte" by Diane DeKalb-Rittenhouse (white woman becomes empowered to take ownership of her family's plantation and is totally a "good" slave owner and feels super bad she can't let all of them go :( this one also ended in some of the cringiest romance dialogue I've seen in a while and nearly caused me to drop the collection as it was the second story and made me worry about what else was coming) and "Feeding the Dark" by Jean Stewart (lesbian cop that comes under the spell of a goddess and has a lot of awful cop thoughts while internally debating on the nature of justice).

the amount of lesbian stories in this was really refreshing, and having a story focused on a mother that lost her son to police brutality and her learning how to cope with that was interesting (I do feel like this one fit as a "gothic" story). there were several authors of color included as well. as mentioned above, getting a story with a fat protagonist that isn't focused on her losing weight was a nice surprise and I enjoyed that one quite a bit. I've had this book sitting around forever so I'm glad to have finally read it!

[Joanna Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was the cover that drew me in. I found it in a thrift shop and the back cover blurb convinced me to buy it. I loved the stories. I like gothic horror though lycanthropy isn't usually a plot device that grabs me. These did. I gave it the fifth star because of Victoria Brownworth's excellent Introduction. It explained the origins of the genre and the 19th century world that spawned it.

I read a lot of fiction from that period and Ms. Brownworth's view of it has given me a broader perspective on the works of Dickens, Austin and other great writers of that century.

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

i prefered the first story over all, but for the most part it kept my interest and i am glad i read it. I sometimes am driving and the first story (cont remember off the top of my head what it was called, i read it a few years ago, but it was about a creeping vine) suddenly pops into my head, i enjoy thinking about it because i feel it was very clever.