Edited by Joe Mynhardt

Shallow Waters, the first volume of flash fiction from Crystal Lake Publishing, showcases stories from a competition run by the publisher. The submitted stories are voted on by readers and published on their Patreon page. It’s a fantastic idea, and results in new voices being features alongside more established ones. At the start of each story is a mini-biography for the authors, and what’s striking here really is the mix.

Many have had short stories published in other markets, or released their own collections. Some have written and published novels, while for others this marks their first publication. Yet no matter the writer’s background, these are all strong quality pieces of flash fiction.

A few, however, do carry the same issue that plagues a lot of flash fiction. Big ideas crammed into small spaces. In some, this results in the sense of wanting more, the desire to see a particular story stretched out into something longer. In others, it results in slight confusion, the difficultly being there isn’t a full story contained in the parameters set out.

This doesn’t really devalue the overall quality of the fiction, however. Each story is different, tackling a variety of themes and with a large number of varied protagonists and point of views. There are some nice twists contained, excellent dark imagery, and really spine-chilling tales to sink your teeth into.

A number of stories really stood out, but I won’t go into them here – there’s the risk, after all, of spoiling something truly wonderful. Plus, this is one of those collections where every reader is likely to have a different favourite, and it’s worth going in not knowing anything about them. It feels like a unique anthology, exploring a wide range of topics and ideas.

If you haven’t yet checked out this series, I highly recommend doing so.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Shallow-Waters-Vol-1-Fiction-Anthology-ebook/dp/B07TM7PYHJ/

Review by Elle Turpitt
@elleturpitt
www.elleturpitt.com

I received this e-book from author Patrick McDonough for review consideration.