Paperback, 40 pages
Published May 30, 2021 by Brain Jar Press.
Angela Slatter’s No Good Deed is a dark fantasy tale of magic, ghosts, and marriage set in her World Fantasy Award-winning Sourdough universe.
Isobel assumed her wedding would be the grandest day of her life, but when she wakes in a ghost-filled tomb still wearing her bridal veil, it’s clear events have taken an unexpected turn.
With the assistance of a vengeful spirit Isobel escapes her imprisonment, but her new husband Adolphus will not be pleased to discover his wife is alive. As Isobel comes to understand her husband’s darkest secret, the newlyweds begin a deadly dance that only one will survive.
This chapbook presents a stand-alone Sourdough story that does not appear in any of the three mosaic collections devoted to Slatter’s world of myth and magic, plus a chronology for all the publications that have appeared thus far.
I enjoyed this short piece by a new-to-me author. There was enough background and setting hints to pique my interest in her other works. The sequence of events had a couple of handwavy aspects. I guess they might be explained in other stories, and I didn’t mind going along with the flow. Presumably, some of the characters feature elsewhere in the story universe. It will be fun to meet them again.
