Beautifully written short fiction! These are truly lovely stories, loosely connected by as sense of quiet magic.

Let me start by saying, I’m not typically a fan of short story collections. I find that the inconsistency often taints the whole for me. For that reason, I only read collections that have been specifically recommended to me, as this was. And, now, I am paying that recommendation forward. The writing in this collection blew me away. The author paints a scene so vividly. The plots are tight and fully realized, even in a shortened form. Highly recommended.

<b>Release Date:</b>02.20.18</b>

<i>All the Names They Used for God</i>, Anjali Sachdeva’s debut release, is a stellar collection of short stories that explores the strangeness that is the human experience and our small stature in the vastness of the cosmos. Rewards abound for the short story lover: science gone awry in “Pleiades”; abandonment and love gone wrong in “Anything You Might Want”; man versus wild (and the call of suicide) in “Logging Lake.” These are intricate, spinning tales that took me off guard.

Does this collection have a theme? I don’t know. Perhaps spirituality is the link (and there is the title to be considered); these stories do ponder the concept of a God and how much say he — or it — has over our lives . . . and how much of what happens to us is pure chance. Bits of magical realism abound (see mermaid tale “Robert Greenman and the Mermaid”), but overall these tales are unwavering, realistic looks at the human condition.

I was pleasantly surprised by these stories. I suspected I would like this collection, but I was knocked for a loop. Compelling and challenging in equal measure, this author is one to watch. I await her next release with baited breath.

Thanks to Netgalley and Spiegal & Grau for the advanced reader’s copy!

We didn’t know yet that for us there was no such thing as just sadness, that our grief had a life of its own, an invisible mouth like a black hole that drew us inexorably closer.

This debut collection is tender, dark, at times bizarre, and compelling. My absolute favorite is Pleiades, and the story has remained with me for days. I wish the author would use her magic and turn the story about the daughters of geneticists, the sisters so terribly alike and ill fated and turn it into a full novel. But that’s just me being greedy, I can only hope she has a full novel knocking about in her brain, ready to give birth to that I can devour one day. It somehow tickled and horrified me, broke my heart and then kicked my spirit some more. All the stories in the collection are clever and strange. I keep imagining my fingers as forks. I also stepped into the shoes of a wealthy girl, hungry to get the hell out and fall in bad love. In Logging Lake, it’s the terror of disappearances and never knowing. It’s eerie, the unknown is a black hole, it’s a madness, it’s the question that can never be solved. In Glass Lung a worker in Carnegie’s steel mill is injured in a freak accident that alters he and his daughter Effie’s future.

There is the hunt for something amazing, and the terror of everything you’ve done, all the sacrifice amounting to nothing. It’s angels as muses, a girl as white as snow burying her dead parents, who finds a husband despite her cursed looks and then descends into a secret dark place beneath the surface of her land. The stories are unusual, and at times there is something ominous threatening just in the periphery of the characters vision. It’s terrible, and lovely. This is an author I’ll be watching, hoping for a full novel! Add it to your reading list for 2018!

Publication Date: February 20, 2018

Random House

Spiegel & Grau

These are lovely stories by someone who has clearly studied the form with great care. The very best are the ones that challenge our perceptions of the world—not exactly science fiction, but otherworldly and absorbing. Highly recommended.

This collection provided everything I look for in a short story: a world that draws me in at once, and a character who takes me on a journey. With each story, we experience a transformation. The writing is what I'd call speculative fiction, but it's incredibly seamless. Every world the author creates feels like it could exist alongside our own. Sometimes the story's place in time is clear (e.g. Carnegie's steel mills). Sometimes it feels like it could be pre-industrial or post-apocalyptic.

Most of all, though, each story stands on its own as a complete journey. While there seems to be a trend toward vignettes and character sketches in modern short fiction, I found these stories refreshing. No story ends on too neat and tidy a note, but neither are we left feeling like we haven't traveled anywhere. Each story hits the perfect balance with pacing, plot, and character arc. A delight to read.

A really good, affecting collection of short stories. I think my favorite stories in the collection were All the Name for God, Manus, and Pleiades. However, there wasn't a story that I didn't like, which is really rare for me with short story collections. The writing is really wonderful, and some of the stories will leave you thinking about them long after you're finished with them. This is really a great collection - highly recommended!

The stories set out for you in this collection are loosely connected by otherworldly moods, inspired by bits of magic, and soft dream-filled prose. The scenes visualized here range from a pioneer women seeking adventure in underground caves, fishermen bewitched by mermaids, a future where aliens replace our hands with metal appendages, an ode to schoolgirls in Africa captured by jihadists, a cold miner’s daughter on the prowl, and a wild, vivacious spirited woman who disappears.

This debut collection of stories delve into the often unexplained elements that come together to make up individual lives, from the extra-terrestrial to the glory of reproductive technology!

A beautiful collection of short stories. Looking forward to more from this author.