Twice Cursed is the second anthology from editors Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane on the theme of the curse. Authors such as Neil Gaiman, Angela Slatter, Laura Purcell, and A. C. Wise have each contributed short stories of dark and urban fantasy and fairy tale to explore the concept of a curse: of being cursed, of cursing another, of exacting a curse, of breaking a curse. The authors take the concept in numerous creative directions, and each story captures a different aspect of the idea.
Snow White must come to terms with living a half-life after she is awoken from the dead, her beauty and her mother’s wickedness haunting her in a cursed mimicry of being alive. A support group for people living with a variety of curses is penetrated by an immortal with an unlikely story. And an archaeological dig slowly gets out of hand as petty academics seek vengeance against a woman succeeding, and she is succumbed by a witch’s buried curses.
These stories are dark but imaginative, gory but redemptive. What drives someone to cast a curse? How does one live a life while cursed? And if you have the opportunity, would you pass your curse on to others to save yourself? These questions and others are explored by the authors in this collection, which is an excellent follow up to the first collection.
I’d recommend this anthology to lovers of dark fantasy and fairy tales, and short stories that take a concept to many different conclusions. Some stories are not for the faint of heart… but then neither is a curse.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Twice Cursed edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane is available now from Titan Books. Grab your copy from Booktopia HERE.
