Karen Russell's first collection of short stories , St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves , established her as a writer of great imagination and inventiveness. The title story of this collection sees Clyde and Magreb, a vampire couple who find some respite from bloodlust in the acidic fruit of a lemon grove of a Jesuit convent. But our true nature always calls to us, and the couple must decide if their days in the sun are sustainable. Reeling for the Empire , the tale of young Japanese women who weave silk from their bodies, is a disturbingly compelling imagining of human trafficking for commercial purposes. In The Barn at the End of Our Term former American presidents find their postmortal souls revived in the bodies of horses living on a kindly farmer's farm and planning a return to their rightful place in the Capitol. It all makes you wonder what is going on in the writer's mind. A couple of stories lack a bit of spark, but Russell is an amazing storyteller, and this book certainly whets the appetite for her next offering.
