Till The Score Is Paid - An Emotional Short Story Collection
As I looked back on my books of 2019, I noticed that I read a lot of anthologies this year; more that I have any previous year. Some were for reviews for this site (check out The Mind’s Plague review HERE), and some were picked up to support fellow authors in the horror community. I am not usually a short story anthology reader. I like the slow build of a longer novel most of the time. I get to know the characters and see them develop. The tension has time to build. At least that’s how I used to feel. Then along comes Gemma Amor with her Till the Score is Paid anthology and makes me appreciate how she can cram all the elements and emotions of a novel into 11 short stories. And by all of the emotions, I do mean ALL of them. From absolution, vindication, and transformation to fear, joy, and love, Gemma pushes all of the right buttons. And each story is accompanied by illustrations. The illustrations are simple, succinct and hauntingly attuned to the words that follow.
Till the Score is Paid takes readers through 11 very different and unique tales of terror. She takes us through contact with (and through) the other side, eco-horror, and folklore giving each story her special mark. The emotion and passion she infused into each story is amazing, hooking the reader from word one and carrying us through until the end. While all of the stories are excellent, one in particular really stood out to me: Justine. Wow. Just, wow. I know that doesn’t say much, but this story is going to stay with me for a while. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s a tale of a woman searching for something lost, something she felt was taken from her too soon. What she finds may not be what she wants, but what she needs. The emotion that Gemma pours into the character made it clear to me that she left everything on the page.
Full disclosure time, I have been a fan of Gemma Amor for a while now, having heard her stories narrated on the No Sleep, Shadows at the Door, and The Grey Rooms podcasts and read her earlier anthology Cruel Works of Nature earlier this year. Till the Score is Paid collects some of her best work in my opinion and you cannot go wrong picking this up. You won’t put it down.
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