"Orphans," by Douglas Light

It’s a story of loss.  She’s without parents since nineteen years old and family connections .  What she has now is only the memory of an abusive uncle.  Advice was given by a neighbor’s dad, a policeman, who counseled her to get a gun. While drinking wine, she remarks about cork: “Twenty-five years it takes the tree to mature.  Then it’s stripped naked of its bark, and stripped once every nine years after that.  The thought terrifies me.”   Language moves this story forward with inevitability of character.  She is now twenty-five.  For a chilling read go here to failbetter. 

"Swanbit," by Teresa Svoboda

From the opening line, I was pulled into the mystery delivered by the rhythm of the language: “Solely and thus sorely did he row off the disk of the sun that the lake reflected and into the dark of the piling-held dock where many-legged water- and not just water life lived, where he lived, when he could.” It’s a wonderful, terrible tale. We’ve all heard of the power of swans, their bulk, their hissing, and the many myths they give rise to. Once while living in Holland where the canals were populated by graceful white and black swans, I was cautioned to keep my distance and to be wary of their merciless beaks and wings. For a tale with beauty and horror, you’ll find this more than a satisfactory yarn. Read it here in failbetter.