Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley. 

A short story collection of five tragic and dark stories filled with grief and trauma. The writing is lyrical and expressive and I really enjoyed it. I also liked the historical insights these stories provided and how each short story painted a clear picture of the place and time it was set in, which made the stories feel quite real. The main characters are another high point of the stories, often overtaken by emotions as they deal with dark experiences and struggle to find connection. Despite the darkness these short stories explore, I enjoyed that it also always tried to show that at least some joy could still be found. 

All in all I really enjoyed this anthology and if you like an exploration of queer life (in these cases gay and lesbian lives specifically) in unsupportive places, complex family dynamics and people dealing with trauma and grief in a variety of ways. 

A Song for Wildcats: A short story about a young queer man in the late 1960s, whose relationship with another man at college was discovered and lead to his exile. Examines the overlap between being forced to be secretive about your love because of external forces and the way it enables abuse to flourish. Heartbreaking, focused on recovery with an open end. Tragic, but beautiful. 

TW: physical and sexual abuse, dissociation, homophobia, self-harm, rape 

Heatstroke: A short story about a young woman traveling, caught in a loop of dreams and foggy memories. The beginning had me guessing what was going on a lot and I struggled a bit with the way the story was told, but the end broke my heart and reframed a lot of it in a way I enjoyed. Less poetically written than the first story, but I felt that worked well. 

TW: mention of domestic abuse, rape 

The Islanders: Another story set in the late 1960s focusing on Belfast and riots happening there during this time. We follow a boy and his aunt as they try to find a way to grieve the loss of a sister and a mother and forge a new connection, but keep hurting each other instead. Grief corrodes everything it touches in here and I really enjoyed especially the first part of the story and would have loved for the haunting horror of it to be explored a bit more deeply or this story to be extended so the ending feels more satisfying, but I still quite liked it. 

TW: body horror, death of parent, drowning, gore, violence, war 

The Wisp: The death of a friend from her past causes a young woman to return to the small town in the Irish countryside she left behind at 18. As she remembers the small cruelties and deep intimacies that shaped their friendship and reconnects with other people from her past, she befriends a strange young girl that lives in town now. Interesting and strange, I enjoyed this story a lot. 

TW: bullying, death 

The Lyrebird’s Bell: A gothic haunting tale of two young girls with troubled homelives and pasts filled with lies in the Australian wilderness as they tell each other dark tales (that might just be horrible truths or might not). Haunting, but a bit too long and repetitive to fully grasp my attention when compared to the other stories in this anthology. I still liked the setting a lot and the relationship between the two girls. 

TW: addiction, domestic abuse, eating disorder, murder, war