anthology – The Constellation of Moon

Moon Reads: Dark Fairies

Posted on October 7, 2025

Dark Fairies Anthology

Rating:

Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.

I love Annalise Jensen’s art, and had already kickstarted and enjoyed her previous fairy anthology art book, so backing this one was going to happen.

This is an anthology that compiles art, comics, and short stories about fairies, transformation, and queer desire. It does have a dark theme overall, and I think it is a wonderful little collection of various artists in it (You can read the Kickstarter project here).

What can I say about it? I liked the previous one more, but this one had gorgeous artwork, some dark and creepy stories, some really good comics (some were not up to my taste or really my topics) and it is a great quality book.

It just makes me feel like I need to get back to creating art after going through this lovely anthology and which gives you art, comics, and one fo my favourite things was that the short stories had artwork or headers or side graphics which made it a stunning piece reminding me of old illustrated books. IT is a beautiful piece of art and very magical.

Book Review

Moon Reads: The Anatomy of Fear

Posted on October 22, 2024

The Anatomy of Fear

Rating:

I found about this book because fo LL Macrae and decided to back it on Kickstarter. Now, I am not the biggest fan of horror, and so I was a bit nervous about it.

One of my favourite things is that it comes as an “anatomy” where each short story covers a body part, like liver or bone or eye, and therefore it goes into some horror for each part.

Overall, the stories are more the kind of horror that will creep under your skin and leave you feeling the chills rather than jump scares and film horror series. This is not a book of screams but rather of layers of horror that build a “body” of stories.

Some were easier to get into for me and despite the topics some were very enjoyable (obviously Bone by LL Macrae) and some were tragic, the tempo varies too and I will admit there were some that were just not for me, both by topic or just couldn’t get into the story as much as others (maybe I was spoilt by some really good ones that others that weren’t bad felt not as good).

So if you want horror short stories to layer a variety of authors and ideas, let the fear come and learn its anatomy with this book.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Shades of Fear

Posted on October 31, 2022

Shades of Fear. Edited by Allison O’Toole

Rating:

Read before: No

Ownership: Backed on Kickstarter

As much as I am not into horror somehow I decided to back this project a while ago, and honestly I will say it was indeed terrifying, a little too much for me.

There are several mini stories in graphic novel form, each from a different artist and with a different focus one after the other.

One of the things I liked was the variety in this book and that each short story is intense and packs a lot into a few pages, but on the other hand, some would have benefitted from being a lot longer than they were as part fo the horror effect was lost on them or it came too fast as it was trying to do a lot. But over all, it was a good book, quite scary and horrific.

Some of the stories really stayed with me, one of them about an engineer in space, and some others more chaotic are still sometimes in the back of my mind, so if you like horror and scary books, this is definitely one to look out for, as it has a lot to offer and a variety of “genres” all of which are horror focused.

Book Review, Books

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls Review

Posted on July 5, 2020

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls. Edited by Hope Nicholson.

Rating:

I bought this on a whim, because I consider myself a geek (and nerd) “girl”. And my curiosity was picked. This did not disappoint.

The anthology starts with a set of cartoons from Margeret Atkinson and it goes on with a mix of short stories, essays, comics and illustrations about the many aspects of being a girl and geek. It is about the spaces we made, and then got taken and had to reclaim. But it is also about gleefully enjoying going into a comic store and being the odd one out but still loving the comics loads.

The book covers a wide range of experiences and of course not all of them rang for me but I could still enjoy them, and there were some I read and felt like they had been watching me as I grew up. Giggles, concern and sometimes a lot of nostalgia ensued.

And part of me wished I had seen this book when I was younger, I would have felt less like the only one going through it and more like part of a bigger thing, in a better way. It’s hard to capture all the stories into a single review but I had a soft spot for some of the comics in it and just enjoyed reading about others visiting shops, conventions, and more.

It is nice to know that some things never change, but that others do and they can be better, more open to others, more accepting.

I can recommend this anthology as a pick and mix read that you can read one or two stories, maybe a comic or two, and drop then come back to it for some more fun stories later on.