I'm so pleased to welcome the fantastic and wonderfully dark Anne Michaud to my blog in celebration of her new short story collection release "Girls & Monsters"...
My love for monsters
Darkness is my favorite world, and the monsters living it
are my friends. I was a child when I realized I wasn't like everybody else
cheering for the heroes, the good guys to survive and kill his enemy – I wanted
the monster to eat them and get away with it. Freddy Krueger, Lestat, Nessy and
cawing crows were so much more entertaining, less predictable; don't give me
sunshine and rainbows when all I'm aching for moonlight and rain. I love
monsters, always have and always will.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking human monsters – no
serial killers, rapists or child molesters – I'm talking full on scales and
fur, claws and wings, coming from somewhere other than here. They're judged and
persecuted, finger-pointed and shooed away, which makes me love them more, because
much like them, I'm used to being bullied for how I look, what I believe in and
who I love.
Monsters love, too: they love blood and mayhem, killing and
stealing souls, but sometimes, some human girl or boy can make them change,
evolve, see things differently, become better and less alone. A monster will
always be more game than any human, more ready to dare any challenge, because
it has less to lose than any of us – what's more risky than love? Nothing,
which is why monsters can love, once they learn what it means, how it feels and
what to do with it.
When I write, especially for my collection about girls and
monsters, I start with them, the bad guys, the furry fiends hiding under the
bed or the killing mermaids eating souls at the bottom of the lake. Because at
the end of the day, if you don't love your monster as much as your main
character, it will never be real, never be threatening or scary enough – and
that would be a shame, for a monster to be forgotten, left in the dark like so
many others.
Anne's Bio
She who likes dark things never grew up.
She never stopped listening to gothic, industrial and alternative bands like
when she was fifteen. She always loved to read horror and dystopia and fantasy,
where doom and gloom drip from the pages.
She, who was supposed to make films,
decided to write short stories, novelettes and novels instead. She, who’s had
her films listed on festival programs, has been printed in a dozen anthologies
and magazines since.
She who likes dark things prefers night to
day, rain to sun, and reading to anything else.
She tweets @annecmichaud
Giveaway!! Softcover copy + The Monster
Collection Skellies, 5 pieces handcrafted by the author
My thoughts
Girls & Monsters is a collection of five short YA
stories written in the dark and macabre voice of Anne Michaud. The collection
kicks off with the surreal “Death Song” a grim tale of mermaid lore, where a
small town mayor makes a deal with the mythological Limnade to sacrifice
tourists to her every year in exchange for a prosperous community. Atmospheric
and eerie, “Death Song” has a quality to it that reminds me of Angela Carter
shorts.
The second tale is “Black Dog”, a disturbing story narrated
by Scarlett, a young American girl who is haunted by a voice that spurs her to
hurt herself. During a trip to London a black dog follows her, a manifestation
of the voice? And is it really a monster or a symbol of something real and far
more complicated? This is probably the darkest of all the shorts perhaps
because of its allusion to reality within the fantasy, but also the story with the most interesting and vivid prose.
“A Blue Story” is an unexpected twist on the folk tale
Bluebeard told from the protagonist Katherine’s point of view. As she goes in
search for her missing dog she uncovers her new neighbor’s creepy little
secret. It’s an original take on the old tale and is accompanied by feisty heroine
a reader can root for. My second favorite of the stories!
The fourth tale "Dust Bunnies" freaked me out the most because I'm arachnaphobic *shudders*. Despite that it's actually has lighter elements to it than the other stories as Chris travels from California to Berlin with her sister Vee to deal with the loss of her nan and to overcome her childhood fears.
And the final story “We Left at Night” is my favorite of the
collection. You all know I like a bit of good old-fashioned post-apocalyptic
fare. I certainly got that in this tense tale of Brooke and her family’s escape
from her zombie-plagued town. In true zombie apocalypse form, “We Left at
Night” is bloody, unrelenting and un-reassuring. Loved it!
Overall, inside the pages of Girls & Monsters are unforgiving creatures and worlds without answers. It's a refreshing break from the norm in YA paranormal and definitely only for readers who can handle the reality that sometimes monsters win...
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