A rich, rewarding collection of stories that is both playful and immersive. Unlike most fairy tale retellings - and this is a less obvious example of that sub-genre (counter-genre?) than Slatter's earlier collection The Girl With No Hands - it is an immersive and even interlinked gathering of stories. Valuing atmospheric storytelling over subversive formal techniques that inject modern mores to 'correct' traditional folk and fairy tales (even if this is a feminist book, broadly speaking), Slatte...

Unlike the first anthology of hers I read, this one was disappointing. I didn't care much for any of the short stories, and there was a repeat of one of the stories I liked in the previous collection. It's a weirder, cruder, and more unpolished collection that's also become repetitive thematically.

I'll be a dissenting voice: I thought her prose was lovely (most of the time) but that the stories themselves weren't particularly engaging and tended to run together. For a fuller explanation, see here.

Astonishing fairy tale fantasy novel told through a series of loosely connected short stories. The stories could, in most cases, stand alone, but when taken as a whole, well, it's greater than the sum of its parts. The place and time are fictional, think Wales and the Dark Ages, and just about anything can happen. This is a story about women and how they saved the world's knowledge that is so bewitching that it is hard to compare it to anything else. Angela Carter comes to mind and maybe a littl...

What a wonderful collection from Angela Slatter. Dark fairy tales in the same setting as Sourdough and Other Stories (see my review here). Full of connections between stories, and it's incredibly hard for me to pick a favorite as the author has done an amazing job of keeping up my interesting throughout my entire reading.

Usually this is not a genre I love but this book was totally astonishing, I literally couldn't put it down. It took me so long to read it just because my knowledge of english is limited. This novel is the result of several shot stories, all set in a fictional time and place. It surprised me the incredible ability of Angela Slatter of describing the story so well I felt I was there without even knowing it. It is not only for people who are particularly into the fairy tales world, it's written jus...

Always clear and hauntingly beautiful, Angela Slatter can be realistically called one of the masters of the short fiction form, balancing earthy and detailed characters and settings that suck you in against chillingly dreadful stories of degradation, revenge, and magic.Each story is poetry, but what really gets to me is the fact that each story in this collection, as with Sourdough, are connected.Not all of them are obviously connected, and in fact, between these two books, they range over great...

An excellent read. If you like fairy tale worlds, ghostly apparitions and horrific environments, read this book. This is Slatter at her best and believe me that really is saying about. Angela Slatter is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors.

Quite simply I love Slatter's writing and her stories. I can't recommend this highly enough, and also Sourdough & Other Stories.

This was absolute perfection!For my complete review in all its gushing fangirly glory, click here

A collection of beautiful and captivating stories.Magnificent!!!!

I'm breathless and set adrift. I feel myself buoyed on gently lapping waves, in this world of Angela Slatter's making. The delicacy of words as tactile creatures wraps around me. Oh, how I've missed how luscious stories can be.

Sourdough and Other Stories by Angela Slatter has been on my radar for ages, but somehow I've just never got around to reading it. For a while I didn't realise it was available as an ebook - and Tartarus Press does lovely hard copies, but they're a leedle expensive for a book you're taking a chance on. And I also wasn't sure that these stories were ones that I would really connect with. I mean, yes, I loved "Brisneyland by Night" in Sprawl, and a few others Slatter has written - especially with

Originally published at Risinghadow.Angela Slatter's The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings was a pleasant surprise for me, because it's an excellent collection of dark fantasy stories and dark fairy-tale-like stories for adults. As a long time fan of the darker and literary side of speculative fiction I can mention that this collection is a unique and rewarding reading experience to those who love literary dark fantasy stories.Because I was deeply impressed by the author's stories and her w...

Imagine yourself as a six years old rug rat with a burning passion for everything ghastly and ghostly: haunted houses, satyrs, enchanted hills, strange gaunt gentlemen, more haunted stuff and so on. Now imagine that your uncle is Ray Russell. Once a week you will visit him at his house and there you will spend all day looking with wide-eyes at those shelves with old, musty, dusty books. Please, uncle Ray, read me a story, you will say. And Uncle Ray will open a book and he will read you a story

TW: sexual assault, parental abuseThe Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings is a remarkable short story collection with sharp prose, dark edges, and feminist themes. All that said, I, strangely enough, didn’t love it as much as Angela Slatter’s previous collection, Sourdough and Other Stories. It might be a difference in expectations. I had no expectations for Sourdough but high expectations for The Bitterwood Bible. But I also found myself tiring of repeated stories dealing with sexual assault...

Angela Slatter has, along with her regular partner in fiction Lisa L Hannett, been one of those authors I have collected yet never really got around to reading due to the reviewing pile taking precedence over the personal reading pile. Sure, I have read single stories on occasion, enough to know that the money I have put down on her other collections is well spent. The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings from Tartarus, is then the first collection that I have read in its entirety. It’s also p...

exquisite modern gothic collection intricately woven together to form a creepy and evocative whole

My thoughts on this incredible short story collection (or mosaic novel) can be found here - http://writerandcritic.podbean.com/e/... - episode 42 of the Writer and the Critic podcast.

Wonderful. Lyrical in every sense of the word. Ties nicely to Sourdough.