Anna Taborska - Shadowcats

[dem bones]

Anna Taborska - Shadowcats (Black Shuck Shadows, 2019)

I, Cat [verse]
The Cat Sitter
Schrödinger’s Human
Bagpuss
Marked

Blurb:
Black Shuck Shadows. A series of micro collections bringing you a selection of tales from the best of classic and modern horror

One to keep us ticking over until the blessed day Bloody Briain is unleashed. A not quite so micro (120 pages) theme compilation includes two new stories, a pair of Black Book of Horror classics, and a short poem.

Series also includes mini collections by Paul Kane, Joseph D'Lacey, Thana Niveau, Gary Fry, Phil Sloman, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Simon Bestwick, Andrew Hook, Andrew David Barker, Penny Jones and Gary McMahon.

Black Shuck

[dem bones]

As mentioned, we've met two of these before via the Black Books and For Those Who Dream Monsters. There are a number of contenders - Schrödinger’s Human among them - but Bagpuss just about shades it as my favourite Anna Taborska morbid masterpiece to date. Was fortunate to be granted a sneak preview of The Cat Sitter this time last year, but as is invariably the case, somehow it reads that much better in hard copy.

The Cat Sitter: Ash Wood Cottage, Wraithsfield, East Sussex. Personality vacuum Jane agrees to house and cat sit for old Oxford pal Isabella and husband Jonathan while they see out April in Spain. Milly the cat has all the usual pleasant traits - she deposits the bloody remnants of her kills where Jane is most likely to sit - but refuses to set paw in the eerie wood. Better that Jane had followed her lead. As Walpurgis Night looms, she is possessed by the spirit of a Seventeenth Century Witch burnt by the locals who believed her responsible for the disappearance of several children .... As with the recent Formby Point (Terror Tales of Northwest England), it's a slow burner, atmospheric as opposed to bloody, but no less effective for that. Author even works in a brief excursion to Miskatonic University.

Marked: A super-inscrutable feline stalks "The Organ Grinder" public house, a gloomy establishment near Southfield Green, avoiding all save one particularly unpleasant gent. Meanwhile DCI Harrison is investigating the brutal murder of a local schoolgirl, whose remains have been dredged from the lake.

Intriguingly, alongside Bloody Britain (TBC), the bibliography at back lists "Novels. Tales from the Organ Grinder (forthcoming)." Will see if we can find out more.

[helrunar]

Thanks for these intriguing notes, Dem. I'm not familiar with this author, but I'm tickled enough by your hints to add the short anthology to my electronic reading device.

cheers, H.