Allysse reviews Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff

Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic
Edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff

This anthology has previously been reviewed by Danika. It is one of the reason that drove me to read it. The other reason, as for Danika, was the cover.

I agree with everything she wrote in her review. The anthology is a collection of really well-written short stories which are able to establish a world and an atmosphere in the short span of pages they have to exist.

I plunged into the anthology with high expectations and I have never been disappointed. All the stories appealed to me and got me hooked from their very first words. There was a nice variety of genres and styles but not of quality. All the stories were good. I would definitely recommend this anthology to anyone and not just to a lesbian audience. Like Danika mentioned the stories are not about being lesbians, they are just fantasy short stories with characters who happens to be lesbians ,and most of the time it isn’t relevant to the story.

If you like fantasy, short stories with an added bonus of lesbians I would highly recommend you read this book. And if you like fantasy and short stories I would also highly recommend it.

JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff did an excellent job with editing the book. I’ve previously read Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories edited by them which was also of very high quality. After reading those two anthologies I am now definitely keeping an eye on whatever they will edit in the future.