Three deeply compelling, dark tales that twist and snare the imagination. Three tales of love, loss, heartache and page turning mystery. Kat Ellis' contribution to this novella compilation, The Twins of Blackfin, is a prequel novella to her amazing Novel, Blackfin Sky. Bo is mourning the death of her friend, Sky, but unusual happenings are occurring in Blackfin, which is saying something as Blackfin is the definition of strange! Perfect prequel. The Darkness by Lucy Christopher is a chilling tale of a girl struggling with her grief whilst also being stranded in the Jungle in the middle of nowhere. This tale deals with difficult topics such as mental health and parental abuse, so be aware of this before you go in. It was well executed and kept me gripped the entire way through. Matchgirl by Rhian Ivory is a retelling. I'll admit I've not read the original so I can't comment on that. Like The Darkness, the main character Nia is dealing with the death of a parent, though that's where the similarity ends! A tale of grief, Nia's love of music is her solace, whilst it's too raw to her father. Overall this book of novellas is gripping and I'd definitely recommend - yes, even though it isn't science fiction! I do read other genres too ;)

Thank you to firefly for the early review copy. I generally love or hate short story collections, so I rarely seek them out as something to read. I made an exception with this one as I've read some of Rhian's work previously and I've enjoyed everything I've read from firefly this year. Out of the three stories, my favourite was Rhian's although the other two were also very good. I did read this book over three nights, so just one story per night and I felt it was a great read for the dark winter nights beginning to settle in on us! Happy to recommend to teens.