This is not about leptoyphlops carlae.

It is Friday night in downtown Milwaukee. The bar across the street has yet to fill up with the soon to be drunk people (mostly women, oddly) who will loudly have fists flying at bar time.

I could have joined the melee. I could still attend a show that would pound every bit of stress out of my body. 

Instead, I sit behind this laptop with every intention of reviewing the stack of books that keeps getting bigger. 

As Jon and Ruth frolic in Willamsburg, I watch their cats (making sure no crazy catnip parties are thrown - you know, the kind that leave the litter boxes over flowing and the water bowls scummy) and their very large tv as rain falls outside.

In just over a month, UNCAGE ME! will be birthed and I am beyond excited. It's been noted elsewhere but damned if we haven't garnered a great Publisher's Weekly review:

While John Connolly (The Reapers) rightly notes in his introduction that this all-original anthology isn't for the fainthearted, noir lovers will find plenty to savor among the 22 stories from both familiar and unfamiliar names. Steven Torres offers the most moving selection, “The Biography of Stoop, the Thief,” in which a 14-year-old boy tries to save the mother who abandoned him for a life on the streets as a substance abuser. Tim Maleeny's “Prisoner of Love” not only features twists and betrayals but manages to make an ambiguous resolution satisfying rather than frustrating. There are some duds, like Maxim Jakubowski's shocker “We Mate in the Dark,” with its pointless savagery, but on the whole the contributors demonstrate the ability to create believable and memorable characters as well as settings in a few pages. (July 24).

Personally, the point of Maxim's story was pointless savagery. To be over the top. It is impossible to always get what every story. I know anthologies are not easy to review. This one has 22 authors with 22 different styles and 22 different points to make. They run the gambit from emotive to mind-fuck. I love them all. 

And I really, really hope you do, too.

See, I just managed to keep from writing reviews for like, half an hour!

Thanks!

First review, Blake Crouch's ABANDON, my favorite book I've read this year. Scary brilliant. Then the beloved Colin Cotterill. And another Aberystwyth novel from Malcolm Pryce! Oh, I was a lucky girl this last round!