Halloween Hearts is an anthology of true love & spooky romance; twelve tales of cursed love, monstrous meet-cutes, dark and stormy witchcraft, and happily ever hauntings. You can get your copy just in time for Halloween (and get your name included as a supporter) by backing the project on Kickstarter.
Anthea Sharp is a USA Today bestselling author of Fantasy and Romance, which, of course, makes her an obvious candidate for the Halloween Hearts anthology. When you read “The Stone at Coill an Dúin,” you’ll understand why all of that is true—especially after we nudged the guidelines to be more open to love stories than requiring more classic romance structures
This is a precious story. A beautiful and fragile piece of fiction built on a foundation of true love that lasts through a particularly prickly test of time that comes wrapped in jealousy, power, and fairly land politics. I loved this story when I first read it. I really wanted to work it into the table of contents, but, I admit, I was worried because it’s got such a strong fae flavor that, to an extent, inclusion depended on our ability to put stories around it that would keep it from standing out. “The Stone at Coill an Dúin,” is true fairy fantasy, after all. While our call was for multi-genres, we still needed to see how it would fit with other stories we selected.
To be fair, I expect Brigid (as co-editor) would have argued for it even if it didn’t play with others. Anthea Sharp’s work is Brigid’s jam.
Luckily, my fear was unfounded.
I should also note that, for the observant among us, Anthea is doing something really nice with “Stone.” She’s breaking a rule or two. Or, at least, like a good fae-steeped writer, she’s taking liberties and bending some at the corners. Yes, indeed, Anthea Sharp can be quite tricksy when she wants to be. What rules? Well…I’ll leave them for you to determine, because at the end of the day, every rule is made to be broken except for the one that says you really must be interesting all the time.
If you pick up the anthology, I’m sure you’ll love “The Stone at Coill an Dúin” as much as we both do.