Title: Priced to Sell
Author: Naomi Novik
In: Naked City (Ellen Datlow)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Fae, Urban fantasy, Vampires
Dates read: 25th September 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: To make the day complete, after she’d gotten off the phone with the vampire, Jennifer’s phone went off with another all-caps CALL ME!!
Real estate is a tough enough gig. But what happens when you are trying to find the paranormal beings that go bump in the night a home? When the homes are cursed? And your latest customer just happens to be Jekyll and Hyde…? Everything must be priced to sell.
We’ve just been through the process of trying to sell a house. So reading a short story about the difficulties of real estate felt a lot more real and hilarious than it probably would have previously. Especially the trying to sell your house in a way that matches your perspective buyers’ desires… the fact that there is a paranormal element added to this mix just made it all the more entertaining.
I had the pleasure of reading my first Naomi Novik story earlier in the month, and I absolutely adored it. However, I did wonder whether or not it was a once off, or all of her work had that same beautiful flavour. I’m pleased to announce that it wasn’t a fluke. She’s amazing. I need more of her. She takes me to many a happy place…
There were so many little threads running through this story. It wasn’t just a tale about one house and one client, but a number of them. There was a vampire, Jekyll & Hyde… and, my personal favourite, a cursed wall of bugs. All in all they combined to make the rigors of attempting to sell a house with paranormal influences downright hilarious. Impossible to forget, and an industry that I really, really want to read more about!
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