Unabridged Chick

Did... I find a whole new host of supernatural creatures to crush on?: YES. Djinn anyone? Angels? Unicorn hunters?Did... I decide to add every single author to my TBR?: YES. I'm already a dyed-in-the-wool Stiefvater fan, but now my list of authors I'm slavishly reading has grown!Did... I find I was even excited to read about vampires?: YES. I'm still not 100% in the vampires-are-awesome camp, but this collection made me pretty happy to have one as my hero or heroine.Review: This solid collection of paranormal short stories is engaging and perfect for the approaching autumn season (for those in the Northern Hemisphere). Many of the authors are recognizable from their novels -- Becca Fitzpatrick, Carrie Ryan, Rachel Vincent, Maggie Stiefvater, Diana Peterfreund -- and even a few offer stories within the universes they write about. In fact, one of the stand out stories in the collection, Becca Fitzpatrick's "Dungeons of Langeais", grabs the reader from the first line, regardless of their familiarity with the Hush, Hush series (says one who hasn't read any of them!). I enjoyed every story, which is pretty rare. Of course, I liked some less than others. One even had me completely flummoxed (emotionally)! Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Spy Who Never Grew Up" is super twisted and kind of awesome and kind of sketchy, and I can't say if I loved it or hated it. And it challenged the idea of 'love', which is the uniting theme of this collection. As editor Trisha Telep explains, love can be light and fluffy and sweet, but it can also be dark and twisted and wrong, and every story in this collections hits solidly on that spectrum.Other highlights included Diana Peterfreund's "Errant", which might be set in her killer unicorn universe; Karen Mahoney's "The Spirit Jar", which includes a vampire (yawn) and a djinn (yum!); Maggie Stiefvater's "The Hounds of Ulster", which is all about teenage musicians and dreams of getting big (and also, faeries); and Daniel Marks' "Vermillion", which sort of felt like being plunked midstream in a story but was so good, I eventually didn't care. In terms of heat, this is a solid PG rating, if that; I actually found few of the stories openly romantic and some really twisted and played with the idea of love and being in love. I wasn't wild about Trisha Telep's introduction to this collection, but I like her taste, so I might even pick up her vampire collection of stories, The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire.