A review by vanmeers
The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls by Angela Sylvaine

4.0

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt lost at one time or another in your life — if you’re a Woman in Society™, then you’ll probably have felt a certain kind of loneliness that’s almost impossible to describe, but which Angela Sylvaine perfectly manages to convey in her short story collection The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls. 

This collection feels both refreshingly new but achingly familiar and it contains a variety of different and unique stories of women and girls lost in one way or another. There’s stories of little girls abandoned by their parents, young girls looking to belong and of women lost to the world; there’s stories full of grief, loneliness and sadness.

Some of my favourite stories were: 

• Sorry, we’re open.
• If heard, please call.
• Return of the wilderness girls.
• Clutching air.

The Dead Spot is honestly a pretty strong collection of stories, that are all equally good, but they all give off different kinds of vibes within subgenres of horror — there’s some paranormal, science fiction and urban legend’ish vibes to the stories and if you’re into Jennifer’s Body and Yellowjackets there’s two stories that are giving everything you’d wish for. Not to mention, there’s a good amount of queer stories and characters in this collection, so that’s a huge win to me. 

Overall, a really solid horror short story collection and if you’re looking to read something by Sylvaine for the first time, this is a good starting point (but I would highly recommend Frost Bite by her as well though!). 

// ARC received by the author for an honest review.