Alabaster: Pale Horse

I bought this book through Malaprop's Bookstore's “blind date with a book” promotion - a shelf full of books wrapped in plain brown wrappers, with descriptive blurbs written by staff, and a price. You buy without knowing exactly what you're getting.The descriptions for this book were:SublimeDeliciously DarkSurrealCalamitousEerieSouthern GothicTerrifying & BeautifulFlannery O'Connor meets H.P. LovecraftIt didn't quite hit for me the way it did for the writer of those terms, but I agree that it's dark, Southern Gothic, surreal, and eerie. Unfortunately it's rather dreary as well, and with no character arc for Dancy (it's a set of interconnected short stories), her exhaustion, hopelessness, and doubts about her mission were more wearing than intriguing. The storytelling sets out to remove all suspense from Dancy's confrontations with monsters - this is a story about her suffering through a treadmill of horrifying and violent experiences and wishing for relief, not about her being a Buffy-style action hero.I did find the depiction of angels compelling, and I can't deny that I consistently wanted to know what happened next. Maybe it's the lack of a real conclusion to the overall story that has left me feeling this didn't quite work for me.I would definitely recommend [b:In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers 491190 In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers Caitlín R. Kiernan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1229050277s/491190.jpg 2223424], the stand-alone version of the opening tale, as a weird and grotesque southern gothic story. If you take to the baroque poetry of Kiernan's language and you desperately want to know more about Dancy, this collection would be a good next step.