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Caution: contains small parts<\/em>\u00a0by Kirstyn McDermott<\/a> is the latest in the Twelve Planets series released by\u00a0\u00a0Twelfth Planet Press<\/a>. It includes the following stories:<\/p>\n Kirstyn McDermott is an author who I can rely on to produce excellent quality, lovely prose that creeps me the hell out. I’ve liked her earlier work (see my previous reviews of Madigan Mine<\/em><\/a> and Perfections<\/em><\/a> if you don’t believe me) so it will be no shock to anyone to find out that I really enjoyed\u00a0Caution: contains small parts\u00a0<\/em>as well.<\/p>\n All four stories are in a contemporary setting (as is most of McDermott’s work that I’ve read). The horror elements are subtle – no splatter-punk here. These are generally speaking not high action pieces, rather they twist horror tropes to find interesting ways of exploring characters \u00a0and merging together the grotesque and the beautiful.<\/p>\n I’m always concerned with describing short story collections\/anthologies – often the pieces are too short to describe without giving spoilers. Let me give you the blurb from the book itself.<\/p>\n Caution: Contains Small Parts is an intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.<\/p>\n A creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead. Four stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My favourite of the four stories was the titular story\u00a0Caution: contains small parts.<\/em>\u00a0Without giving anything away, it resonated the most with me. I felt closer to the protagonist than in any of the other stories, and found the ending particularly moving.<\/p>\n The first story,\u00a0What Amanda Wants<\/em>, is a very strong piece. A strongly realised protagonist and a mystery that felt solid and resolved satisfactorily (with trademark McDermott creepiness).<\/p>\n Horn\u00a0<\/em>contained some very visceral writing and again a strongly realised protagonist. This is the story with added unicorns, in case you were wondering.<\/p>\n The final story (more like novella length) is\u00a0The Home for Broken Dolls<\/em>. This was probably my least favourite of the book. Don’t get me wrong: it is superbly written, with some well drawn characters and a good arc for the protagonist. However, I found it more intellectually interesting than emotionally engaging. This is probably one of those this-says-more-about-me-than-it-does-about-the-story moments though.<\/p>\n Overall this is another excellent addition to the Twelve Planets series, and a fantastic addition to \u00a0McDermott’s body of work. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n I also reviewed this book on Goodreads.\u00a0View all my reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n <\/p>Hi,\n Welcome to Mark Webb’s author website. At this point the site is rather sparse – I’ve only recently started writing and there isn’t a lot to show for it right now. You can check out\u00a0my biography<\/a>, see …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,65,14,15],"class_list":["post-2236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-awwc2013","tag-kirstyn-mcdermott","tag-review","tag-specfic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Caution:](\"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/17971485.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\nA gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.
\nA once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story – now with added unicorns.
\nAn isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Creative](\"http:\/\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by-sa\/3.0\/au\/88x31.png\")
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\nThis\u00a0work\u00a0by\u00a0Mark Webb<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License<\/a>.<\/p>\n