Jeff Abott | Earth and Skye

Image result for death's excellent vacation book cover

Title: Death’s Excellent Vacation
Author: Charlaine Harris, Sarah Smith, Jeaniene Frost, Daniel Stashower, A. Lee Martinez, Jeff Abott, L.A. Banks, Katie MacAlister, Christopher Golden, Lilith Saintcrow, Chris Grabenstein, Sharan Newman & Toni L.P. Kelner
In: Death’s Excellent Vacation (Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Short story collections, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 4th June – 26th November 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Anthology
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: Still, appearances were deceiving.

An all-new anthology of vampire stories edited and with an introduction by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner.

I absolutely loved this collection. I normally love anything to do with paranormal fantasy anyway. But this is a particularly good one. After all, it’s all paranormal fantasy and urban fantasy stories that feature vacations.

It’s coming to that kind of year that I wish I got vacation time in y job. That I wish I could just take some time off and do whatever it is that people do on vacation. Which meant that it was really lovely to read a collection of short stories that feature vacations. All of which made me a little more thankful that I haven’t been going on vacation.

This is a collection that has a little bit of romance, a lot of humour, and generally anything that could possibly go wrong when you have vacation time does. It had me smiling and laughing throughout. I will most definitely be reading this one again.

<- Pirate Dave’s Haunted Amusement Park

Two Blondes ->

Image source: Amazon

Title: Safe and Sound
Author: Jeff Abott
In: Death’s Excellent Vacation (Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Humour, Paranormal fantasy, Vampires
Dates read: 7th November 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: Blank.

This journalist is just looking for a big, amazing story. But what she finds with her underhanded ways instead… well, somebody is Safe and Sound.

Little known fact – when I finished high school and was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, I seriously considered journalism. But, already at that point, I felt like it was a field more about sensationalizing a story, rather than telling the truth. This short story was a great reminder of that feeling – how the media often just picks the story that is going to get the most attention, just because it will get the most attention. Truth and honesty be damned.

The vampire angle in this story was completely fun and brilliant. It was also entirely predictable, but I did love the way that vampires filtered into a story about the media and a missing boy. I also loved how there was a total comeuppance to the story using the vampire as the angle. They’re not normally the good guys – and in this story they still certainly aren’t. But at least the vampire delivered some poetic justice.

This short story made me think of all of the people that go missing and the stories that are never told. It left me feeling a little melancholy, but in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

<- The Innsmouth Nook

Seeing is Believing ->

Image source: Amazon

Earth and Skye

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Tag Archives: Jeff Abott

Death’s Excellent Vacation edited by Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner

Safe and Sound by Jeff Abott