Shadow of the Rose
By Annette Gisby

   Magical Stories Told by Editor of Silent Screams

      Here are about a dozen magical stories, very different from one another but all feeling a bit like the ones we knew in the days when we were read to. They have a fireside quality to them. Each has an aura of the fairy tale from the Childcraft or Big Golden Books we knew way back then.

      That does not mean that author Annette Gisby has not updated her stories. She gives us women who are much like the romantic characters that float through our favorites like "String of Pearls," "Sleeping Beauty," or "Rapunzel" but they are updated; they are in new flower. She also well knows how to give a story a Guy DeMaupassant twist.

      In her stories, we see the influence of the author's Irish heritage, the literature, the oral tradition. We can almost imagine a Leprechaun muse sitting on the corner of Gisby's desk or perched on her computer screen and she is at her best when she lets him talk through her as she did in the story of "The Witch Hunter." She is on less firm ground (although certainly still adept) when she attempts more modern tales like "The Glass Guitar."