The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls by Angela Sylvaine

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The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls is the debut short story collection from the author of FROST BITE and CHOPPING SPREE.

The Dead Spot. A corner drenched in shadow. An earthquake’s epicenter. The part of a roller coaster ride where the car rounds the final curve and all force dissipates, leaving those trapped beneath the safety bar feeling sick and hollow.

The Dead Spot is a heart-wrenching collection of seventeen stories where lost girls and women live and die, where they laugh, cry, and disappear from view around that final curve.

Introduction by JAW McCarthy (Shirley Jackson Award finalist for Sometimes We’re Cruel)

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Release Date: May 21, 2024

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Overall Rating

4/5

Spooky Rating

4/5

Quick Take

The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls by Angela Sylvaine takes the concept of “lost girls” and creates an incredibly eclectic collection of short stories that explores all facets of the term. Each story could make its own novel, and so many of them left me wanting more. I couldn’t put this collection down, and I loved just about every story included. That is so rare for me when it comes to horror collections.

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Tell Me More

I have to start this review by saying that I didn’t realize that the author and I live in the same area until I read the short story that bears the title of the collection. That made me appreciate this fabulous collection even more!

Horror collections are always so varied in their offerings, and The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls is one of the most eclectic collections I have read. It features flash fiction and novelettes, and no two stories are alike. Some are more brutal than others, and a lot of them are on the heartbreaking side. The theme is consistent in that it features stories of girls and women in tough and often violent situations – and many of the women featured were morally grey. I appreciated this aspect, because so many times women and girls who are deemed “lost girls” are assumed to be weak, but that was not the case with this collection. The term “lost” was explored in a variety of ways, including women who fight back against hatred and violence, girls who are seeking to fight back against their lower social status, and girls who are working to save their neighborhood from gentrification. None of these girls and women go down without a fight, and I loved it.

My favorite selections included Playing Tricks, Antifreeze and Sweet Peas, The Dead Spot, and Clutching Air.

The ending of Playing Tricks was deeply reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode, and it took my breath away. It addressed perceived mental illness in a way that twisted it into more of the effects of manipulation by others.

Antifreeze and Sweet Peas was brutal, heartbreaking, and shocking. It addressed mother-daughter relationships and fighting back against violence towards women in a completely unique way. The twist of the story was also fantastic and unexpected.

The Dead Spot featured an old amusement park that I grew up around here in Colorado, so it was near and dear to my heart. It was haunting and supernatural, while being a bit bloody, which was a nice treat.

However, my absolute favorite selection was Clutching Air. It tackled the subject of gentrification and left me in tears. It follows a young woman fighting back against the changes in her neighborhood with an ultimately devastating ending.

Sylvaine knew how to address difficult subjects through a horror lens, and I was amazed by her intense imagination. I look forward to reading more of her work!

If you are a fan of horror that features feminine themes and doesn’t shy away from real-world horrors, you are going to adore this collection. I definitely need a physical copy now so that I can hold this gorgeous collection in my hands and revisit each story! I can’t recommend it highly enough.