Many Bloody Returns edited by Charlaine Harris

Many Bloody Returns edited by Charlaine Harris

2009, Ace Trade

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Rating

Synopsis: From cakes to stakes, a celebration of everyone's favorite bloodsucking subculture by a baker's dozen of favorite authors. Each of these thirteen original stories offers a fresh and unique take on what birthdays mean to the undead. From Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse attending a birthday party for Dracula to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden battling bloodsucking party crashers, these suspenseful, surprising, sometimes dark, sometimes humorous stories will ensure paranormal fans will never think of vampires or birthdays quite the same again.

The Good: Vampires and birthdays - sounds like a random combinations - really works here. I generally avoid anthologies, but the stories here were almost all winners. I absolutely loved Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher and Rachel Caine's stories. This book also introduced me to Tanya Huff, who I'll definitely check out again soon. Tate Hallaway and Jeanne C. Stein's stories also motivated me to start looking into more of their works.

The Bad: The "original" Sookie story isn't all that original to anyone reading the book now, as it was included in the exclusively Sookie anthology "A Touch of Dead." And Christopher Golden's story was just sort of weird and overtly random.