Red Spikes

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 1 OCT 2007

Lanahan, whose Black Juice won critical acclaim both in her native Australia and in the U.S., will further enhance her reputation with this fine second collection of 10 stories. Driven by beautiful, often quirky language and deep psychological insight, these works demonstrate a powerful sense of the marvelous. In "Baby Jane," a boy on holiday hears a magical servant shout, "My queen is in difficulties. Is there a midwife here?... Any kind of leech, any wise woman," and finds himself in charge of delivering a royal child; a different sort of child, an emotionally needy girl who fears she will "die of her distress" after being separated from her mother for a night, must show some gumption and outwit the terrifying, baby-eating ogre Wee Willie Winkie in "Winkie." Other memorable characters include the dead souls in Limbo, who in "Under Hell, Over Heaven" earn brownie points by transporting the recently deceased to their final reward or punishment; and the eponymous "Daughter of the Clay," an unhappy changeling who travels to fairyland and decides in the end that it's best for her "to stay silent, on my bottom among the Clay, and fill my mouth with fish." Gritty, dark and sometimes very nasty, these stories are, at their best, worthy of comparison to the fairy tales of Angela Carter. Ages 14-up.