Book Review: The Bone Key

The Bone Key by Sarah Monette

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This collection of horror short stories filled a dark need I had forgotten I had. By the time I was finishing the second story I was in love. I first discovered Lovecraft almost forty years ago, and it was good. The lack of character and other weaknesses were no matter. Those were stories I was born to read.

Now, I'm older and so much more sophisticated. And along comes Sarah Monette who knows about character (including female characters!), sexuality, and style. But that is not what got me. What got me was that she recreated that feeling of first discovering Lovecraft, and it was perfect.

Like Lovecraft, Monette knows that the thing you can't see is so much more frightening than the thing you can. My two favorite stories are "The Venebretti Necklace" and "Elegy for a Demon Lover."

In her introduction, she cites a story by M. R. James that reduced her to "a quivering wreck. I like that in a guy."

This guy enjoys a woman who can do the same. I hope she writes sixteen more volumes.




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