#Review Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong by Kelley Armstrong #Fantasy

Series: Anthology
Format: Paperback, 384 pages
Release Date: September 15, 2015
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Urban

Welcome to the many worlds of #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, Cainsville). As her SyFy channel series, Bitten, enters its second season, Armstrong continues to breathe new life into city-dwelling vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Now travel even further with her, to a post-apocalyptic fortress, a superstitious village, a supernatural brothel, and even feudal Japan.

In Led Astray, you’ll discover the stories of new characters from within and outside Armstrong’s popular novels. Here you will find two original tales from Cainsville, plus journeys to and beyond the worlds of Darkest Powers, Age of Legends, Otherworld, and more.

Bold and humorous, passionate and heart-stopping, here is Kelley Armstrong at her versatile best.

"Devil May Care" #4.2 Cainsville Universe; Original story for this collection. Story is from Patrick's POV. It goes back to the origins of Gabriel Walsh and his deceitful, conniving, underhanded, awful mother Seanna who someone manages to become mother. I'd suggest that you pick up the Cainsville series and read from beginning to end so that this isn't a spoiler. The author revisits the story of Mallt-y-Nos (Matilda of the Night) in an interesting way.

 

"Dead to Me" (2009) First appeared in Tesseract Thirteen; Chilling Tales of the Great White North. Strange story. Didn't really do anything for me and the twist at the end only made me more confused.

 

"The Hunt" (2011) A Cainsville Universe short story #4.1 Cainsville Universe. First appeared in The Globe and Mail. Two urban hunters get more than they asked for when the wild hunt turns the tables on them. Too short for me to care who the characters were.

 

"Plan B" (2004) First appeared in Like a Charm; A Novel in Voices editing by author Karin Slaughter. You reap what you sew says the bible. So when a woman who has made a life of sleeping with wealthy married men finds herself on the receiving end of some pay back, it's all a matter or survival. There's not a likeable character in this entire story. Most got what they deserved.

 

"Life Sentence" (2010) First appeared in The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology. Daniel Boyd is a man who has it all. But nothing can stop cancer. He's given 6 months to live, or find a cure to make him immortal. After trial after trial, Daniel may have found an answer. Or, has he? Brutal ending.

 

 "V Plates" (2012) Otherworld Universe, featuring Nick. Story is entertaining. One of Nick's werewolves needs to lose his virginity or fear being embarrassed for life. Nick, Reese and Noah head to Philly where they encounter an usual situation. A supernatural brothel. Demi-demons called Vetala have taken over the place and the three weres will need to fight for their lives to get out alive. 

 

"Harbinger" (2009) First appeared in Campus Chills. Jenna can see dead people. Unfortunately for Jenna, she's clueless about what the ghosts are warning her about and proceeds to do what other silly women in horror movies have done for years. Ignore the warnings. Horrible ending.

 

"Gabriel's Gargoyle" (2014) Set in the Cainsville Universe also called Cainsville #3.1. Gabriel Walsh is the main character.  Gabriel's challenge is to find all the gargoyles in Cainsville. Winner gets a gargoyle modeled in their image. The story was an interesting read, and gave me a better understanding of why Gabriel is the way he is. He is a smart kid that learned to care for himself at an early age. Even with a crappy mother.

 

"The Collector" (2009) This story was part of an anthology celebrating the 20th anniversary of Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, set in his world. Sarah Lane is really good at solving puzzles. Extremely good. So when she's offered good money to solve an impossible puzzle, she's in. Very curious ending. Reminds me of the movie Hellraiser 1987.

 

"Suffer the Children" (2013) First appeared in Four Summoners Tales. Children are dying of diphtheria in Chestnut Hill. Main characters are Preacher and Addie who lost her parents 2 years ago. Preacher is wary when two outsiders appear and offer a solution. A solution that leads to horror. Another story that could have been much longer since it leaves so many unanswered questions as to what happened to certain characters.

 

"Dead Flowers by a Roadside" (2012) First appeared in the Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by women. This is a sad and depressing short story with a predictable ending. Husband has lost his wife and daughter to an unforeseen accident even though they did everything they could to keep safe. The only thing he wants is to find them again.

 

"The Door" original short story for this collection. This is as mysterious as it is short. Father goes out hunting and comes back with books and games for his daughter who is told to never open the Door. Father later dies. Mother goes out hunting for books and games. Upon their deaths, first daughter opens the doors to see a world that is destroyed and decides that it is up to her to protect her younger sister.

 

"Young Bloods" (2010) Otherworld Universe Story, first appeared in The Bitten Word. This is really short. Roger is stalked by 2 vampires on a train who want his blood, but he's not without his own surprises.

 

"The List" (2011) First appeared in Evolve 2, An Otherworld Universe Story featuring Zoe Takano. Story takes place one year from Learning Curve. Someone writes a list of vampires living in Toronto but Zoe is not on it. Zoe and her new prodigy Brittany investigate and learn she's not the only one upset. Brittany is the girl from Learning Curve who thought she was going to be a vampire hunter until Zoe intervened.

 

"Branded" (2013) First appeared in Shards and Ashes; Otherworld Universe Story featuring Rayne who lives in an apocalyptic world. Survivors live in a fortress, but there are room for people who are werewolves, and thus they are branded and sent away where there are wild people out in the world waiting to take what they can in order to survive. Rayne makes plans with her boyfriend to escape with a hostage. This could have been a full length novel since the story ends abruptly.

 

"Bamboozled" An Otherworld Universe Story (2014) First appeared in Dead Man's Hand. Dakota Territory 1877. Lily and Nate are bounty hunters. Oh, and they're werewolf mates. Another shorty but entertaining story.

 

"Last Stand" (2010) Appeared in the Living Dead 2: Standalone. This is a post-apocalyptic setting. Monica Roth is the commander of a band of resistance fighters. The catch is that this is told by a person who is basically one of the walking dead after being infected with a vaccine, dying, and being reborn thanks to the vaccine. They are trying not to be wiped out. If they catch the Others, they turn them into the undead. Ending is left wide open without resolution.

 

"The Kitsune's Nine Tails" (2014) First appeared in Fantasy for Good, A Charitable Anthology. Set in Feudal Japan, Alvar Kitsune, Marshall of the largest army in the world, has just been sentenced to be sent to the forest of the dead after being charged with being a traitor by his friend Emperor Jiro Tatsu. Along the way, there are Nine tales of possible moves that Kitsune will take in order to escape. This is An Age of Legends Universe Story. One could call this a Prequel to the series itself. 

 

"The Screams of Dragons" A Cainsville Universe Story (2014) One of the longest stories in the book. Bobby Sheehan dreams of castles and dragons. His best friends Hannah and Rose live in Cainsville. Whenever he's there, he feels like home. Until he goes too far and people start getting dead. Been a while since I read this series.

 

"Learning Curve" (2010) First appeared in Evolve: New Vampire Stories of the Living Dead. An Otherworld Universe Story. Zoe Takano is a vampire born in Japan. She finds herself being stalked by a tenacious teenager who is a half fire demon. Too short to rate. This is the fist of two Zoe's stories.

 

"A Haunted House of Her Own" (2009) First appeared in The Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th anniversary. It's a short horror story. A couple buys a house and wants to turn it into a haunted house inn, turns out the house really seems haunted. I will give this story props for the creepy factor. Ending will mess with you. Be careful what you wish for.

 

"Kat" (2009) first appeared in The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire. This is A Darkest Powerful / Darkness Rising Universe featuring a 16 yr old girl named Katiana and her protector Marguerite who end up running from thugs from the Edison Group and Dr. Davidoff who only think of her as an experiment. Fair amount of action. Kat’s story continued in Hunting Kat, originally published in Kisses from Hell.

 

"Rakshasi" first appeared in The Monsters Vorner: Stories by Christopher Golden (2011)  Really quick story about a woman named Amrita who has had enough of being controlled by others and decides that 200 years of being told what to do has come to an end. 

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