Recently, under Just Arrived, I posted on receiving an Advanced Reading Copy of Juliet Marillier’s first short story collection, Prickle Moon — due out this month from Ticonderoga Press.

I also talked about how I enjoyed one of the stories in the collection, Juggling Silver, when it came out in Tales for Canterbury in 2011, and re-quoted the excerpt I had used for the “A Peek Inside Tales For Canterbury” post series. You can read that Juggling Silver excerpt here.

As I also noted in the Just Arrived post, Prickle Moon contains 14 short stories, some previously published like Juggling Silver, but others—like the eponymous Prickle Moon and the final tale, By Bone-Light—written specifically for this collection. The collection also includes two non-genre stories, Letters from Robert and Jack’s Day, as well as a novelette, ‘Twixt Twilight and Water, that is set in the world of Juliet Marillier’s “Sevenwaters” series.

So what did I think? Well, I loved it, dear readers, especially all the genre stories—of which I think By Bone-Light might just be my favourite, not least for its fresh look at the fairytale character of Baba Yaga. I also very much enjoyed Prickle Moon, liking the way it wove considerations of class into Fantasy material, and found Twixt Twilight and Water “just right.”

As some of you may know, generally I am not a big short story reader, but I did find myself wanting to read the next one. These are magical, diverse, hopeful tales and I have to say, I was very impressed by Ms Marillier’s skill as a short storyteller: she never pitches her arc too high to deliver within the short story confines, or leaves the reader with that dissatisfied feeling that somehow part of the story is missing.

If you have enjoyed Juliet Marillier’s novels, and enjoy mainly Fantasy speculative fiction with a strongly Celtic but also romantic flavour, I am “pretty sure” that you will enjoy Prickle Moon.