17 stories of difficult love, broken hearts, lost hope, and discarded truths. Love brings pain, vulnerability, and demands of revenge. Hardened Hearts spills the sum of darkness and light concerning the measures of love; including works from Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award), Tom Deady, author of Haven (Winner of the Bram Stoker award for … for Superior Achievement in a First Novel), Gwendolyn Kiste, author of And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe and Pretty Marys All in a Row, and many more.
Hardened Hearts dips from speculative, horror, science fiction, fantasy, into literary and then out of the classifiable and into the waters of unpinned genres, but pure entertainment nonetheless.
FOREWORD – James Newman
IT BREAKS MY HEART TO WATCH YOU ROT – Somer Canon
WHAT IS LOVE? – Calvin Demmer
HEIRLOOM – Theresa Braun
THE RECLUSE – John Boden
40 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR MONSTER LOVER – Gwendolyn Kiste
DOG TIRED – Eddie Generous
THE PINK BALLOON – Tom Deady
IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO – J.L. Knight
BURNING SAMANTHA – Scott Hallam
CONSUMED – Madhvi Ramani
CLASS OF 2000 – Robert Dean
LEARNING TO LOVE – Jennifer Williams
BROTHERS – Leo X. Robertson
PORCELAIN SKIN – Laura Blackwell
THE HEART OF THE ORCHARD – Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi
MEETING THE PARENTS – Sarah L. Johnson
MATCHMAKER – Meg Elison
more
HARDENED HEARTS contains dark fiction stories connected by the theme of love-all kinds of love. This book’s strength is in its diversity. It covers so many facets of the subject, there’s something here for everyone. The tales that stood out for me were:
Calvin Demmer’s story WHAT IS LOVE knocked my socks off!
THE HEART OF THE ORCHARD by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi. This read almost like a warped fairy tale, and as we all know, fairy tales can often be quite grim.
PINK BALLOON by Tom Deady was my favorite story in the book. It totally broke my heart.
HEIRLOOM by Theresa Braun. I love tales about mirrors and this was an excellent example of why. This was my first experience with Theresa Braun’s work and we are off to a good start.
THE RECLUSE by John Boden. Short and sweet, Boden always impresses me.
ClASS OF 2000 by Robert Dean. I guess the moral of this tale is not to mess with someone that can throw a baseball at 100 mph. It seems like common sense to me.
BURNING SAMANTHA by Scott Hallum. I had never previously heard of Scott, but he’s on my radar now.
50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR MONSTER LOVER by Gwendolyn Kiste. Here is another author that I haven’t had any experience with but whose story was impressive.
Lastly, IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO by J.L. Knight. A heartbreaking story about love and loss. Poignant and dark all at the same time.
9 of the 17 tales resonated deeply with me and that’s above average, so I rounded up my original rating from 3 to 4 stars. I have some new authors to follow and I think they are offering up original work which only improves the genre. Bravo!
Recommended for fans of diverse dark fiction.
*Thanks to John Boden for providing an e-ARC of this anthology in exchange for my honest review. This is it.
Hardened Hearts is a collection of short stories that is gross, lovely, sad, scary, terrifying, evil and all that is in between. The characters hearts will be laid bare, some you can literally see. Are you afraid yet? Some of the horror can be in told a few pages, some will take longer, but all of them are sure to entertain you. I give the collection four stars, but have also included a one sentence review for each story.
See more at http://www.fundinmental.com
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this collection.
Most of the books I read these days have romance of some description in them. And inevitably, there will be a Happy Ever After.
So, it makes to change to read a collection of books that, while following the romance theme, there ain’t no hearts and flowers, there ain’t no Happy Ever After either. Because, just as much as falling in love can be the best thing that happens to you, it can also be the worst.
I didn’t read all the stories here, about half I read. The ones I did read were very well written, in various ways from first and third person, and in past and present tense. Some about normal everyday people, some paranormal, some scary, and some were just plain weird. There was one book, that I could not read, that is written in the second person, as in YOU. Very odd.
But the one that stuck with me is possibly the shortest one here. Its only maybe 4 pages, but it proper had me bawling my eyes out!
It Breaks My Heart To Watch You Rot, by Somer Canon, 4 pages but 5 full stars!
It tells the story of a woman whose husband (partner, lover, it matters not) has clearly lost his mind but she still visits, still tells him the car is his, that SHE is his. She takes him out, every Saturday, as he used to do himself. And then she gets the call he is gone. No names are mentioned, just he/she and him/her, but it gets the point across.
“Love didn’t provide the real happy ending. There is no such thing between two lovers such as them.”
If you want something a little (and a LOT) different, this one will be for you. If you are feeling very anti-Valentine’s, again, one for you.
Just don’t expect Cupid’s Bow to be anywhere around.
For the ten books that I read, 4 stars overall, with 5 Stars for the book mentioned.
**same worded review will appear elsewhere**