The first story Mystique showed the most promise with it's long-lost missing husband and relating of an attempt of Dimitra to make amends with her terminally ill cousin. But even this story was shaky on details and was vague dialogue, pieced together with little coherency. I found myself with more questions that were never to be answered with each story, which by the time I finished all the stories left confusion with no closure to any of the tales.

The second story-The Dark Thing seemed to center around jealousy and obsession but it lacked impact to deliver suspense or concern for any of the characters.

The next story Mind Boggling didn't have any particular meaning and it was here, I began to wonder about the mixing of past and presence tenses in the same sentence. Even if I understood the meaning of this short irrelevant tale, the confusing mix of tenses would have pulled me out of any connection I might have formed. Likewise, the grammar was improper and as I did not have any background on the characters, I wondered if the phrase 'You woked me up' was intentional to point out the character's education level, or just bad grammar on the author's part and lack of editing at the publisher's level. (Characters in the other contributions to this anthology also spoke their dialogue this way, so I still could draw no conclusion if it was intentional or not.) And a few dialogue tags were 'he went' instead of 'he said' so I am in doubt the book saw an editor's pen.

There are other short entries in this collection but it is pointless to comment on each individually, as they all lacked details and substance to bring a reader into their depths, or emotional impact to impress the mind, or entertain.

I went into this anthology with an open mind, thinking maybe it was an avante garde attempt at writing and would have some profound underlying message or at least some entertaining aspects within its pages, but I was deeply disappointed to find little to recommend it. To say more about the lack of writing mechanics would be unkind so I will end this review with a kind thought…The writer is sure to do better in the future.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Explicit

Reviewer: Torie West
March 26, 2004