Short story: Review: "The Lover" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Lover by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published November 2023 via Amazon Original Stories

What Judith wants, her sister Alice has: the interest of a handsome young hunter, ready to step in with big promises and an eye for beauty—and an eye for money.

What Judith has, nobody wants: the interest of a scruffy stranger from the woods, one who speaks in riddles and secrets.

I haven't read any of Moreno-Garcia's full-length works, but I probably should, because this twisted little fairytale is working hard in its 40-odd pages. From the first page, you're reminded of the difference in pacing between a short story and a novel—She'd always known, says the first page, and when she awoke, and A few months later. It's much harder to pack that many time jumps into the first three paragraphs of a novel.

Nobody is altogether sympathetic here—not Alice, who treats her sister as a servant; not Judith, who lets desire blind her; not the man who is a fuckboy nor the man who promises and delivers darkness. But also: I'd read a novel about Judith, Judith and her yearning for a world beyond her poor, provincial town. This is no Beauty and the Beast story, mind, but a woman refusing to comply with convention, and lonely enough to look past whatever morals might have been instilled in her...it makes for an interesting story.

This feels very appropriate for a dark autumn night—into the woods, into the woods, to Grandmother's house we go...

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.