Award-winning stories from the world of All the Murmuring Bones and The Briar Book of the Dead, this is a compendium of fantastic tales from the dark gothic heart of the Sourdough universe. Witches, assassins and pirates are brought to life in immersive, sinister and magical prose.
Comprised of three collections (Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings and The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales) these mosaic narratives form much of the foundational mythology for the novels All the Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, The Briar Book of the Dead¸ The Crimson Road and A Forest, Darkly.
Within these pages, coffin-makers work hard to keep the dead buried and their own murderous urges in check; poison girls are schooled in the art of marital assassination; books carry forth stories and forbidden secrets; a young witch wreaks a terrible revenge on an old lover; the Little Sisters of St Florian devote their lives to knowledge good and bad; a dying forest god is reinvigorated; mermaids and seamstresses make dangerous bargains; changelings bring havoc. Saints slumber, hind-girls dance across the countryside, bears show their true colours, and the fate of the upper and lower worlds rests on the whim of a volatile plague maiden…
Exquisite, compelling and rich with unforgettable characters, these stories layer and intertwine in the dexterous hands of a master storyteller. All three collections were shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award with The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings winning the award. This is beautiful fairy-tale gothic of the most haunting and dangerous kind. A.G. Slatter has won a Shirley Jackson Award, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, three Australian Shadows Awards, eight Aurealis Awards and a Premier Ignotus. Most recently, All the Murmuring Bones was shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Book of the Year and the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award; The Path of Thorns won both the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the Australian Shadows Award for Best Novel in 2022; and The Briar Book of the Dead has been shortlisted for both the Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards for 2024. She has a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, and has been a judge for the World Fantasy and Aurealis Awards. Angela's short stories have appeared in many Best Of anthologies, and her work has been translated into many languages. She lives in Brisbane, Australia with a superannuated beagle and a TBR pile which will likely be the death of her. Find her on her website angelaslatter.com and on social media @angelaslatter
