Favorite Short Stories of 2009

Last year, I started presenting my favorites according to length, because I wanted to be able to recognize stories in anthologies. Good work should not go unnoticed. Just like last year, two of my favorites in short stories - for me, that's anything less than 15k - come from anthologies that otherwise wouldn't have gotten the recognition.

4th Runner Up

Painting from Life by Anne Brooke

For someone who reads as much as I do, finding a strong, original voice can make my whole week. Anne Brooke paints as effectively as her unnamed narrator, though words are her medium. In doing so, she created an indelible rendering of a complex relationship that lifts the brief telling to a masterful level.

3rd Runner Up
Angel's Tears by Bryn Colvin

At the heart of this haunting story is a sad sack of a Plain Joe that completely captured my heart. Charley is the reason this story succeeds as well as it does, turning what could have been a maudlin pity party into a tale about hope and love that transcends spirit and flesh.

2nd Runner Up
Henry and Jim by J.M. Snyder

You know it was a good year for short stories when my 2nd runner up title scored a 10 for entertainment. This is one of those stories that prove how masterful Snyder can sometimes be, a bittersweet love story that relates a romance we should all be so lucky to have.

1st Runner Up
Shock Radio by Gabriel Daemon

The common thread running through most of my favorite short stories of this past year is that they are not your traditional romance. This one, especially, is as far as you can get away from that. Daemon grabbed me by the throat with the opening story in this anthology and shook me until I was so rattled I could barely think straight. It's bold and brash, just like its main character, and manages to creep me out just thinking about it in the height of the cheeriest season of the year.

And my favorite short story of 2009 is...

South by Dalyn A. Miller

Though this anthology was one of the better collections - as a whole - that I read this past year, the best one in it by far was "South" by Dalyn A. Miller. The story of two men on the verge of separating, it skillfully weaves backstory and forward momentum in wrenching, realistic ways that put so many other stories to shame. I rooted for this couple with everything I had, and promptly went back to re-read it when I finished it the first time. I find it a little ironic that, like my favorite last year, it was released by a publisher I've had difficulty reading more often than not. But talent shines, no matter where it's published.

Headfuck by Bryn Colvin

TITLE: Headfuck
AUTHOR: Bryn Colvin
PUBLISHER: loveyoudivine
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 14k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.75

Spiritual healer Bee gets called to help a woman’s husband who has retreated from the world, and touches a mind that is unlike any she’s ever touched before…

This short story starts out incredibly intriguing, as spiritual healer Bee is asked to come and check out a woman’s husband. The wife is at her wit’s end. After they lost everything, the husband fell apart, becoming practically catatonic. Bee is reluctant to take the case, as she doesn’t like to help people who don’t ask for the help themselves, but she goes anyway, her instincts telling her to go. Touching his mind isn’t like touching anybody else’s, and even though the wife doesn’t pursue her services after that first visit, Bee can’t get him out of her mind.

There’s some great atmospheric touches in Bee’s encounters with this troubled man, but while experiences become quite visceral, they end up raising more questions than they ever answer. It’s an intriguing ride, and I got caught up in trying to discern where exactly it was going to take me. For half the story, there’s no hint of romance, though she does have some erotic moments with this man in her head. It seems to be more a tale of self-discovery, a path I was actually more than fine with. When it finally does shift to the romantic aspects – quite late in the story – I was disappointed. It never felt organic to the rest of the story. Bee’s emotional journey promised to be bigger than that.

She really is the true centerpiece of this short. While the hero does get introduced, he left so little impact on me, I remembered very little about him at the end other than his art. The whole spirituality aspect of her self-exploration does get a little tedious, but she remains a warm, driven, aware woman, fascinating me more than enough to keep me involved.

Because of the veer the story takes, I can’t say that it necessarily works for me as a whole as well as it started out, but I like how the author takes risks. I’m rarely bored by Colvin’s work, and look forward to further exploring more of her worlds.

Readability	7/10 – There’s an ethereal quality that matches the heroine, but it grows old after a while
Hero	4/10 – For a long time, I didn’t even think this would be a romance, that’s how little the hero actually impacted me
Heroine	7/10 – Driven and warm
Entertainment value	6/10 – The romance felt tacked onto the end and spoiled what could have been a good psychological short
World building	7/10 – Some great atmospheric touches, but it always felt like there was something I was missing
TOTAL:	31/50

Angel's Tears by Bryn Colvin

TITLE: Angel’s Tears
AUTHOR: Bryn Colvin
PUBLISHER: loveyoudivine
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 10k)
GENRE: Fantasy erotica
COST: $2.50

Charley Bowman’s life is nothing as he imagined it might be. At thirty-two, he lives with his parents, has no friends, a dead-end job, and has never been in love. Until he spies a marble statue in the cemetery he cuts through twice a day for work. It’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. It deserves attention. It deserves care. It deserves love…

This is the second story I’ve read by this author, though the first erotic piece. It won’t be the last. The author has a delicate touch in her writing, as well as a way of creating transcendent characters that completely appeals to me. In this, it’s Charley. Poor, lonely, sad little Charley. There’s nothing special about him. He still lives with his parents. He’s got an awful, mundane job. He doesn’t have friends. It would be so easy to make a character like this pathetic, but under Colvin’s skillful touch, he’s not. At his core is a hopeful heart, something a lot of authors miss when trying to write this kind of character. His spirit carries the story through, from the haunting prose at the beginning where he walks through a cemetery that felt as real as my back yard, to his rush through the rain near the end, where I practically felt the raindrops dribble down the back of my neck.

It’s this identification with the main hero that makes this haunting, melancholy story such a compelling read. The relationship he develops with the angel walks a fine line between creepy and heartwarming. When the story turns erotic, it’s his emotions that give the various scenes their real depth. This is not a romance, not in the genre sense of the word, but the love that permeates every page in this is practically palpable. It’s probably one of the most romantic erotica shorts I’ve read, at turns sweet and torturous, hopeful and agonizing. It’s not perfect. The editing isn’t the tightest I’ve ever seen, with enough silly typos to mar my enjoyment, and it can, at times, be overwritten. Those two factors are likely the reasons the climax didn’t punch me in the gut the way I’m sure it was intended.

Still, I’m coming to admire the fact that this e-publisher is willing to put out erotica that cuts across the norm. This is a piece I will remember, and Charley a hero I’ll ache for, for months to come.

Readability	8/10 – A lyrical melancholy makes this flow
Hero	9/10 – The soul of this shy, average, Plain Joe permeates every page.
Heroine	5/10 – An object of his focus in more ways than one
Entertainment value	8/10 – The ending didn’t have quite the impact it probably could have, but this haunting story still got to me.
World building	9/10 – The haunting atmosphere of the cemetery does half the work into sucking the reader in.
TOTAL:	39/50