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.
Brigid and I liked “Pumpkin Guts,” by Emily Munro from the get-go. It’s a delicious bit of a hoot. Or, as Emily herself wrote on her social media: It’s a classic girl-dumps-boy, boy-tries-revenge-and-ends-up-in-the-compost-heap story. It’s sweet, seasonal, and satisfying as the first sip of pumpkin-spiced revenge.
We knew we needed it in this anthology, too, because it brings a collection of things into the volume that we won’t find to the same degree elsewhere. It’s an everytown setting with a YS sensibility that celebrates joyous, healthy relationships. It’s also more of a classic meet-cute, which gives us a nice (pumpkin) spice of contemporary romance. From the title alone you can tell it hits the Halloween thing square in the target. And the characters. Well…Brigid and I both loved them…except, of course, for the ones we weren’t supposed to.
This is a story built to end with a satisfying sense of comfort.
Read it when you need a burst of that delightful sense of justice that makes you want to smile out loud.