Shayna Krishnasamy

I'm glad I created my "unfantasy" tag. There's nothing actually fantastical about this novella, but thematically it reeks of the fae, of transformations and of secret curses.

The nameless narrator meets Regan while in the grips on depression and falls under the spell of this woman who everyone falls in love with. Regan takes a liking to her, too, and soon the two are inseparable. You know those melodramas where a poor girl emulates a rich girl, secretly plotting to take her place? Here it's Regan plotting for the narrator to take her place, and it's deeply, deeply creepy.… (mer)

This is a novella so it didn't take very long to read. It's about a young teenage boy who is spending the summer with his cousins. He gets ill and during his illness, bonds with a younger female cousin who is a prodigy, she is a talented painter. He doesn't really fit in with the male cousins who tease him mercilessly but he ends up betraying his female cousin in his attempt at fitting in with the other boys. He tells the story from the point of view of an adult looking back. I really liked the story and would have enjoyed a full novel with these characters. We get hints of what happened to the boy and girl as they grew up a bit when one last encounter is described when they are in their late teens/early 20s… (mer)