About the Author

Margo Lanagan is an internationally acclaimed writer of novels and short stories. Her collections of short stories have garnered many awards, nominations and shortlistings. Black Juice was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, won two World Fantasy Awards and the Victorian Premier's Award for Young Adult Fiction. Red Spikes won the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers, was a Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare title, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Her novel Tender Morsels won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

Margo lives in Sydney. She maintains a blog at www.amongamidwhile.blogspot.com and can be found on Twitter as @margolanagan.

Reviews

'...I was astonished by Red Spikes...The inventiveness, variety and quality of each story are extraordinary...Lanagan seems to have tapped into a bottomless reservoir of inspired creativity, each piece a unique gem.' Viewpoint, Summer 2006'...Lanagan has an extraordinarily dark sense of humour and takes obvious delight in subverting our expectations.' Junior Bookseller + Publisher, September 2006'...Highly imaginative...disturbing in their oddness...Every story is unexpected.' Australian Book Review, October 2006

Gr 9 Up-Continuing in the style of Black Juice (HarperCollins, 2005), Lanagan presents 10 more tales of life, death, love, and the supernatural. Familiar places and concepts are turned upside down and inside out, and spun into something new and intriguing. "Winkie" takes a child's nursery rhyme and uncovers a dark, nightmarish core. In "A Feather in the Breast of God," the spirit of a pet bird returns to aid a family member in distress. The Catholic concept of Limbo provides the background for an examination of souls doomed to wander "Under Hell, Over Heaven." In a few brief pages, Lanagan manages to delineate her characters clearly, placing them in situations that test the limits of their courage and the depths of their humanity. The writing is haunting, evocative, and thought-provoking, though as with most short-story collections, some selections give greater satisfaction than others. Libraries with a high demand for tales of the fantastic will be particularly interested in this book.-Christi Voth, Parker Library, CO Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.