If you like your spec fic with a Southern flavour — lots of Tabasco, mebbe some grits on the side — then Bluegrass Symphony should hit your literary taste buds. The collection, published by Ticonderoga Publications, is the first from Adelaide’s Lisa Hannett (via Canada — their loss is our gain!) and offers 12 juicy tales set in a faux Southern Gothic setting.

Hannett, who shared the Aurealis Award for best fantasy short story with Angela Slatter for their co-written ‘February Dragon‘, knows her recipes. There’s just the right amount of fantasy in the dozen shorts here to make a very tasty meal indeed: it all looks very normal but the flavour, it really hits you.

Bluegrass Symphony an amazingly consistent and accomplished debut, and due out in August. A full review is at ASiF.