“A Cursed All Hallows’ Eve” is an interesting compilation edited & coordinated by Gina Kincade, which offers over twenty stories specially tailored to this season, when the veil between realms is at its thinnest, All Hallows’ Eve, what common people call Halloween and less common still know by its all pagan name Oíche Samhna. The Box Set offers stories by various authors, each one them with a very distinct style, with a single theme in common: Halloween curses. A great lecture for this time in the year. The book features all typical supernaturals: vampires, shifters, demons, ghosts, witches, fae… you name it. With a great variety of stories, both in length and content and level of maturity and almost 2.300 pages, the chances to find a new favorite author are high.
There are stories from barely three chapters long as “Dark Angel” by L.A Ginnis and “All Hallows Academy: Thirteen Day of Halloween” by Majanka Verstræte; to over thirty like “About in the Cards” by Ariel Dawn. The stories are marked with a ‘flame’ level for maturity reaching from ‘One Flame’ (an absolutely clean story) to ‘five flames’ (a very mature level, that centers in the physical aspect of the relationship, including multiple partners, and very adult content and situations).
As compilations come, this is a good one, and offers a wide choice of stories and authors, while some of the stories are very candid, the inclusion on several 4/5 stories, the book aims exclusively to mature audiences. That being said there is something there for everyone, and it makes it easy to sample a great number of authors before committing to a series.
“Spell of Snow” by S.J. Pierce is a relatively short story included in the box and a most compelling one. A gripping story, about freedom and bigotry, and the power of redemption. Very well written, captivating and with some unexpected and very welcomed twists, this is exactly the kind of story you would like to read, sitting by the fire on a Samhain night.
Pierce’s protagonist Rosanna Frey (Rosie), a sixteen-year-old girl living in Ipswich, Massachusetts in at time in which merely being a woman could get you killed anyway, as the crazy around the existence of witches took over the collective mind. However, Rosanna has a major problem, she has magical powers of her own, she is in fact witch. Fully aware of the fate ahead, Rosanna has been extremely careful, for over six years now, since the time she discovered she could make flowers bloom, until the fateful day she got caught by her best friend.