Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love

Anthologies and I don't have a great track record but I have to say after reading Kiss Me Deadly my faith has been restored. The trick people is to get an anthology with more than one faovurite author's story in it...hehe.

Now I am not going to talk about every story in the book because I did love a majority of the ones I read. There were eight in fact that I liked a lot but the one's that stood out to me the most were The Hounds of Ulster by Maggie Steifvater, The Spy Who Never Grew Up by Sarah Reese Brennan and Many Happy Returns by Daniel Marks. All three of these stories were unique, filled with great characters and were developed perfectly.

The Hounds of Ulster was a faery story that hadn't read like any other faery story I had come across and written from the point of view of a character that wasn't enraptured by the paranormal aspect of the story but appropriately regarded it with suspicion. A story with heart and about the bond of two friends who could have been great. Each line in The Hounds of Ulster was chosen very carefully and used to create a very solid tale. I thought it was much better than Maggie's full length faery novel Lament in fact so if you liked that one than you'll love this one.

The Spy Who Never Grew Up is about a very familiar boy name Peter who learns that Wendy's great, great, great (not sure how many greats) granddaughter does not appreciate being pulled out of her bed in the middle night. This was such a fun read and my first time reading anything by Sarah Reese Brennan even though The Demon Lexicon had been on my TBR list already. The story was not only witty but a smart, wonderful twist on an old classic.

And then there was Many Happy Returns, the last story in the anthology that had me giving a deep sigh after I had finished reading it because it was such a sad yet hopeful story. Many Happy Returns is set in the Generation Dead world, a series of novels by Daniel Marks that I have yet to read but will now do so even if the covers do not fit the writing. Told from multiple POVs Many Happy Returns really pulled me into the story and had me connecting with the characters despite only getting to know them in a few pages. And although there were times I felt confused because I wasn't familiar with the world of Generation Dead the writing completely made up for it.

Kiss Me Deadly was a great collection of YA paranormal that had, in my opinion, something for everyone. There were light funny stories, somber heart aching stories, creepy don't-read-before-going-to-bed stories and the suspenseful action stories where the protagonist or antagonist could die any minute. A good amount of stories were set in already established worlds from author's other books while others were new stand-alones but whether new or old they were for the most part great reads.