Title: Heathcliff Is Not My Name Author: Michael Stewart In: I Am Heathcliff (Kate Mosse) Rating Out of 5: 3.5 (Liked this) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Retellings Dates read: 16th May 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Borough Press Year: 2018 5th sentence, 74th page: You hear a fox scream and an owl cry.
A great, and different point of view to the story of Heathcliff and his unhealthy obsession with Cathy.
This is a bit of a ranty, ravy type of story. Just one block
of text that recounts Heathcliff’s impressions of Cathy and her family as he
grew up. That makes his tale a little more tragic. A little more relatable.
Even if I still think he’s a douche.
There is a certain divorcing from the name Heathcliff throughout
this story. A sense that the story we all know isn’t really the true story.
That there is so much more beneath the layer of the tale. So much more to
Heathcliff than such an overwhelming douche.
Alright, so this story might have made me soften a little towards Heathcliff. It gave him a little more personality and reason for his emotions than any other retelling of Wuthering Heights I’ve read so far. But it only made me soften, not completely thaw towards the capital douche.
Title: The Wildflowers Author: Dorothy Koomson In: I Am Heathcliff (Kate Mosse) Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Romance Dates read: 6th May 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Borough Press Year: 2018 5th sentence, 74th page: This time my body remembers how to move and takes a step back and lets in the woman holding a very large knife.
She’s being taken at knifepoint by the love of her life’s mother. A series of flashbacks and ruminations will let her finally understand all that happened ten years ago. And what’s about to happen now with a modern day Heathcliff.
Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this short story. Most of the
stories in this collection have been really interesting and engaging. But not the
type of story that I would generally consider “enjoyable”. Which meant that I
was incredibly surprised when I enjoyed this so much. There was just a level of
sweetness and romance to it that the rest of the short stories in this
collection quite frankly don’t have.
I love the idea of a past love that was left, for a variety
of reasons in this case. But, the sweet revenge and poetic justice of the grandfather’s
“Heathcliff” revenge worked brilliantly. The complete turn around and the way
in which a really horrible family was forced to (maybe) attempt to become
better people worked brilliantly. And now I’m kind of sad that it’s over.
Title: How Things Disappear Author: Anna James In: I Am Heathcliff (Kate Mosse) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Contemporary Dates read: 27th April 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Borough Press Year: 2018 5th sentence, 74th page: By the time the answer was written, the rib was back, and she assumed she had been mistaken that it ever went away.
When did you realise that you were slowly disappearing? When did part of you return? How do you make your heart beat in an empty chest again?
I’ve always believed that in almost every meaningful
interaction we have with people, we give them a small part of ourselves. That,
if they are able, they in turn give something back to us. But what happens when
the people we surround ourselves with just take, take, take? What happens when parts
of you begin to disappear as people refuse to return your gifts?
This story is incredibly disjointed, it hints at everything,
but tells you nothing. And I think that this visceral reality that you just
can’t quite grasp works perfectly. That maybe it’s the idea of giving and taking
in turn that is really what indicates love. That maybe, just maybe, we are all
slowly disappearing until we find someone to help us put ourselves back
together again.
16 modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy.
Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love.
Sixteen stories inspired by Wuthering Heights.
In Terminus a young woman hides in an empty Brighton hotel; in Thicker Than Blood a man sits in a hot tub stalking his newly-married love on social media; and in A Bird Half-Eaten an amateur boxer prepares for a match.
A woman recalls the Heathcliffs I Have Known and the physical danger she has borne at their hands; in Anima a child and a fox are unified in one startling moment of violence; and in One Letter Different two teenagers walk the moors and face up to their respective buried secrets.
Curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018, these fresh, modern stories pulse with the raw beauty and pain of love and are as timely as they are illuminating.
I did enjoy this collection, but not as much as I had hoped. Probably because I bought this before reading Wuthering Heights. Which I then hated. So although this collection went a long way towards helping me to understand just why people love the classic so much. I still didn’t really love the obsessive, twisted romance that really features throughout all of these. The darkness that is completely overwhelming and more than a little difficult to understand.
Taking an incredibly rich classic, one that has stood the
tests of time and creating different storylines and modern perspectives on it is
an impressive feat. Collecting all of these stories together in one great collection
was thoroughly enjoyable. It definitely gave me a whole new perspective on the classic.
And made me want to give it a go for a second time… maybe in a year or two when
I’m a little more mellow, and less likely to hate on Heathcliff and Cathy so
passionately…
Title: Tunnel Vision Author: Rachel Nussbaum In: The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (Sean Wallace) Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Dieselpunk Dates read: 27th April 2019 Pace: Medium Format: Short story Publisher: Robinson Year: 2015 5th sentence, 74th page: I stick it in the padlock and swing the doors open.
The prospector has two leading ladies in his life – Alma and his drill, Jules. But when one of them is threatened he finds out what he is truly made of.
We all get tunnel vision sometimes. Decide that something is
or isn’t going to happen and do anything that we can to ensure that it turns
out the way that we want. But, I’ve never had tunnel vision in… well, a tunnel.
Underground.
I thought at the beginning of this story that it would be a bit
of a romance tale. After all, it starts out with a prospector visiting a woman
that he clearly has feelings for. And one that seems to return those emotions.
But then he goes to his second love, a giant drill, and things start to go a
little skewy… he discovers illegal activity, is forced into giving up one of
his most treasured possessions, and finds a way to triumph in the end.
Unlike some of the other Dieselpunk stories I’ve read so
far, this is one that has a clear, happy ending. There isn’t anything in it
that is ambiguous, and it is just incredibly sweet and fun.
Three Kosher butchers stumble across Jack the Ripper late one night. Things don’t quite go as planned, but they definitely have something to celebrate at the end of the night.
The introduction to this story filled me with intrigue. Not
because it was a great opening to a story, but it explained where the author’s
origin to this story came from. Accompanied by a photo, it made this story seem
all the more plausible. And one that I would almost like to imagine actually
happened.
One of the suspects of the Jack the Ripper case was Jewish.
Or at least, a Jewish man was suspected (even if they didn’t have a specific
identity). So I kind of liked that this story featured three Jewish butchers.
People who would have been suspect, and indeed, in the retelling, I wondered if
they were the villains. After all, a butcher was also believed to be the
culprit.
Without giving the ending of this story away, it was kind of
fun. But also with a fair amount of commentary on the social and political
unrest of the time. It nestled in perfectly with reality and the imaginations
of an author.
Title: The Cord Author: Alison Case In: I Am Heathcliff (Kate Mosse) Rating Out of 5: 3 (On the fence about this one) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Retellings Dates read: 10th April 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Borough Press Year: 2018 5th sentence, 74th page: You are me and I am you, she would say.
Heathcliff can feel the cord tying him to Cathy, but when she decides that she wants to marry another man, he realises that it might just be time to cut the cord for good.
I still don’t like Wuthering Heights, but this short story did help me feel a little sympathy for Heathcliff. Or at least, sympathy for him when he was first hurt. There is no excuse for the actions of later… but I digress, this is about The Cord, not the entirety of Wuthering Heights.
I like the idea of being tied to another being by an
invisible cord. To be honest, it’s kind of how I feel about my own partner,
that there is something extra that ties us together. To be fair, my cord is one
of romance, and this one is kind of sick and twisted. But it is a great piece
of symbolism. The cord that ties two people together, but what happens when one
person is tied more tightly than the other? What happens when one person
decides to ignore it and move on to other things in their life? How can you
break such a tie to a living being? Well, in this tale Heathcliff is just determined
to find out.
Title: Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring Author: M. John Harrison In: Black Feathers (Ellen Datlow) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Horror, Mental health Dates read: 12th April 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Pegasus Books Ltd. Year: 2017 5th sentence, 74th page: London was as quiet as a nursing home corridor.
China loves Isobel. But Isobel is aiming for something higher. Something that might end their lives together and create a new world view.
This story made me think of anorexia and other eating
disorders. Although the storyline features Isobel Avens trying to turn into a
bird, her constant weight loss and wish to be something else has serious echoes
of an eating disorder. It made me incredibly uncomfortable reading this too,
especially since I know a lot of women who have suffered with such horrible
body issues…
Unrequited love is a bitch. And honesty, I think it’s what
shifts this story into the horror realm for me. It feels like one of the more
terrifying things that anyone can experience… China gives his everything to
Isobel. And yet, at the end of the tale, that is not enough and he must find a
way to either move on in life or be miserable forever…
Title: My Eye Is A Button On Your Dress Author: Hanan al-Shaykh In: I Am Heathcliff (Kate Mosse) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Twisted romance Dates read: 1st April 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Borough Press Year: 2018 5th sentence, 74th page: He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.
She’s received a letter from a man she hasn’t seen for years. One that she thought was lost to her forever. But, when she returns to her home for a happily ever after, she realises that not everything is as it seems…
I actually thought that this story was going to have a happy
ending. Completely expected it, and actually looked forward to it. And then all
of my hopes came crashing down at the end. It was actually kind of a sinister ending
and one that left the story open to many, many possibilities. It was just…
uncomfortable and really quite dark.
I haven’t really read any stories that feature Arabic culture
and are written by people from this part of the world. It’s something that just
hasn’t shown up on my radar, and I haven’t really gone searching for it either.
So it was kind of nice and interesting to read a story set in this reality. Especially
when it is in a collection based upon an English classic. A great way to show
how universal themes can be carried across a variety of cultural realities.
Although this story deals with a culture and worldly view
that I don’t understand at all, it was still completely relatable. This short
story took the same themes that I am familiar with and bought them into a
different world, sweeping me along with them.
Kate thinks she’s met the man of her dreams, but then a visitor from the future comes and asks her to make the ultimate sacrifice. Could he be the key to her true happily ever after?
This didn’t quite go the way I had expected. I was expecting
Patrick to be Kate’s lover and to try to stop her from being attacked or
something horrible on the night that he returns to visit her. Maybe I’ve just
been watching far too many crime shows. So it was kind of nice to find that
that wasn’t the tale of this at all. That it was a far sweeter, simpler and
more beautiful story than I had ever expected.
For the first story in a collection of time travel romances,
this was a great way to start off the collection. Not only is the setting of a wedding
a fantastic way to set a romance vibe, but it was also a soft and gentle
version of time travel. Rather than travelling back or forwards hundreds and
thousands of years, but a mere thirty-odd. The softness and relativity of this
travel is a great way to ease you into time travelling, something that I
honestly haven’t had much to do with yet, and not a genre that I would even
claim to know much about. But now I can’t wait to find out more.
Earth and Skye 