'Welcome to The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories.
'Slatter’s work has been described by the legendary Ramsey Campbell as “enviably original, and told in prose as stylish as it’s precise. Not just disturbing but often touching, her work enriches and revives the tale of terror.”
'From the fierce changeling children of ‘Finnegan’s Field’ to shades of old gods in ‘Egyptian Revival’, from the Lovecraftian echoes of ‘Lavinia’s Wood’ to a new kind of Victorian sleuth in ‘Ripper’, and from the re-imagined fairy tale of ‘The Little Mermaid, in Passing’ to the tender terror of ‘Neither Time nor Tears’, the stories in this collection spring from dragons’ teeth scattered on the field of story.
'The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories collects twelve reprints and two new unpublished tales, with an Introduction by Kim Newman.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Dedication:
To Angela Carter and Tanith Lee,
dark mothers, weird sisters,
magnificent role models.
'This is my grandmother’s house; mine since last Tuesday when the will was read, an impoverished student sitting on a million dollar piece of property. The air still carries the scent of her, the faintest hint of lavender and Pears shampoo—but there have always been odours in this house that seem to have no source: pipe smoke, aftershave, hair oil. This morning I thought I woke to the sound of her skirt swishing against the petticoat she insistently wore. I thought there was the soft click of the heels of her house shoes on the polished wood floors, muted when she got to the rugs, clear again when she’d crossed them. I thought I heard her singing and the quick snick as she switched on the electric kettle my sister and I bought her three years ago when she kept burning herself on the stove-top one. It’s a Russell Hobbs, silver, sexy and too expensive but it was the only way to make her change—tell her how much it cost so she couldn’t bear to let it lie in the pantry gathering dust.' (Introduction)
'[A] dark fantasy novelette about a six year old child who mysteriously disappears for three years, only to return home just as mysteriously — but not quite the same. At least, not to her mother.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
