 These Foolish & Harmful Delights by Cate Gardner is an engaging collection of dark fantasy tales that range in subject matter from Hell-borne Punch and Judy dolls, to haunted asylums for the condemned, to demons and monsters in love. Love, in fact, is the most prolific unifying theme throughout the book, though not in terms of any romantic or wholesome affectations: the love spoken to in each tale is love lost, or love debauched; cruel, twisted love from things you’d not wish to meet; tragic love and unrequited love; love as a motivator to pursue dark deeds. Additional themes also help to expand the range of this collection, including death; coping with loss; distorted remembrance; searching for self; and abuse and torment. Author Cate Gardner has an endearing poetic voice in her writing. Her characters are tragically flawed and self-recriminating, each like a once-lovely flower with self-awareness, knowing it is wilting in a waterless, dying garden. Most of the stories I enjoyed (which I’ll get to next), although, admittedly, there were times I’d begin to lose interest in a story (“When the Moon Man Knocks”), or feel unsure of what is occurring (“Daisy Deerheart)”; however, I’d be drawn back in each time by the strength of Gardner’s fanciful and elegant voice. The bad and the good: Bad, is that many of the characters felt interchangeable throughout the stories. They suffered the same fears and spoke in the same manner… their voices—as lovely as they are—became a little too habitual. Some stand-out unique characters which broke out of these molds tended to be the antagonists, such as Irwin Ghoate in “Barbed Wire Hearts” and the demonic Gilbert Down in “In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair,” both of whom were gleefully nefarious in their own ways. Perhaps that is why those stories were two of my favorites. The good: The settings of these stories were always ethereal, otherworldly ventures beautifully dreamed up by Gardner, and I adored them all. Although the characters often seemed “similar,” what set them apart was the realm they’d be dropped into, and that most of all seemed to define each of the eight tales. Of note are: The Fool’s Theatre in “This Foolish & Harmful Delight,” where the performing troupe members are all built from dead body parts, à la magical, enslaved Frankenstein monsters. The setting is filled with pulleys, shackles, and mad scientist’s bottles of eyes and other body parts. Also of note: The rooms of mirrors, doors, and souls, in “In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair”; and the Gothic-feel of the cemetery and contrast between life and death reflected in “Daisy Deerheart,” etc. My favorite stories, oddly, were the ones in the second half of the book, particularly the following: “Barbed Wire Hearts” in which the dead and the heartless of a small town battle against a demonic satyr-like creature who collects and eats the hearts of the living. “The Death Moth’s Weighted Wings” in which one must not speak the names of the departed, less you get taken away by the ghoulish cemetery men. “In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair” in which a birdcage-bound girl escapes through mirrors to encounter a strange realm of otherworldly ghosts and denizens, two of whom fall in love with her and fight for her affection. Bonus: Extravagant sensory descriptions of smells in this story! Great quotable lines throughout the collection as well: “Everyone needed someone to hate.” and “‘Don’t mind my frightful appearance and I shan’t mind yours.” Overall Four out of Five stars. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/These-Foolish-Harmful-Delights-Gardner/dp/1910462160 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51474427-these-foolish-and-harmful-delights https://www.foxspirit.co.uk/product/these-foolish-and-harmful-delights-by-cate-gardner/ Eric J. Guignard THESE FOOLISH & HARMFUL DELIGHTS BY CATE GARDNER A Punch and Judy escape from a hell of discarded body parts and captive puppets.A girl escapes her birdcage through a mirror where a Perfume Thief lies waiting.A boy with a lost heart, a girl with a stopped heart, and Ghoate, the man who collects hearts.Contents:THIS FOOLISH & HARMFUL DELIGHTA BLEEDING OF INKWHEN THE MOON MAN KNOCKSTHE DEATH MOTH’S WEIGHTED WINGS FOR THOSE WHO DANCE BY ROPE OR DREAM IN THE BROKEN BIRDCAGE OF KATHLEEN FAIRDAISY DEARHEARTBARBED WIRE HEARTS  Eric J. Guignard ) is an American horror, dark fantasy, and literary fiction anthologist, editor, and author. He is a lifelong resident of Southern California, and teaches Technical Writing through the University of California system. Eric J. Guignard has written and published over one hundred short stories including "Experiments in An Isolation Tank," published in the 2012 anthology titled Chiral Mad by Written Backwards. "The Tall Man," published in Shock Totem.; and "A Case Study in Natural Selection and How it Applies to Love," published in Black Static. His non-fiction works include "The H Word: Horror Fiction of Tomorrow," published in Nightmare Magazine.   Comments are closed.
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