Posted in Recent Reads

I finally finished this book several nights ago.  It was my MOMS Club book pick for March, but we had all kinds of scheduling issues with the discussion, so we decided to hold over the book for April as well.  So naturally, I paused reading it so I could read other things.  LOL  Our discussion on this will be tomorrow, although a couple of us have already compared notes as to which stories we liked and which we didn't care for.  Will be interesting to get together and see how similar our tastes really are!

The cover of Emerald Magic states that it contains "Great Tales of Irish Fantasy" by a collection of authors.  The book is in two sections, the first is "The Little People" and the stories are all about Irish mythological creatures (faerie, leprechauns, banshee, etc); and the second section, "Literary Fantastics," contains stories based on Irish authors or literature.  Authors that contributed short stories to this book include:  Tanith Lee, Elizabeth Haydon, Ray Bradbury, Andrew M. Greeley, Peter Tremayne, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, and Morgan Llywelyn. 

As expected with any collection of stories, some I enjoyed and others - not so much.  A couple of these stories left me saying "Huh???" and wondering if there had been a point to the story at all.  The very first story in the book was one of these, which made it hard to continue reading! The stories I particularly liked were:

• Speir-Bhan (Tanith Lee)
• The Merrow (Elizabeth Haydon)
• The Butter Spirit's Tithe (Charles de Lint)
• Banshee (Ray Bradbury)
• The Lady in Grey (Jane Linkskold)
• A Drop of Something Special in the Blood (Fred Sabergaen)
• For the Blood is the Life (Peter Tremayne)

Overall, an entertaining read - the nice thing about collections of short stories is that if you come across one you don't like, you have the option to skip it entirely without affecting your enjoyment of the rest of the book.  The stories I did like balanced the ones I had to slog through.  And fortunately, in most cases, the ones I didn't care for were mercifully short.  The stories in the "Literary Fantastics" section even prompted me to look up a little more information about two of the Irish poets and authors they referenced - William Butler Yeats and Bram Stoker.  I must admit that I did not know that Stoker was Irish.  The result of that discovery is that it prompted me to read his Dracula.  Sometimes I think one mark of a good story or a good book is that it prompts me to read something related. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to discussing this book with my friends tomorrow!