Blanket of White collects fourteen tales, including the titular story, by Amy Grech in one volume for your appraisal. There is no one single theme running through the collection, rather it sort of gives an overview of the Author's work to date. So you get a sort of Whitman's Sampler to saviour, or not, depending on your view of what the dark genre should be about. There are certainly stories that will keep the dark angels hovering, equally there are yarns that may have some readers wondering if they should have been included at all. Let's get down to things and try to pretend we are making an informed decision here.

The collection is another in the “it followed us home” series of reviews we are running in an attempt to put Downunder literature in an International context. Don't worry we wont be reviewing Stephen King blockbusters or James Herbert novels, we are taking a look at those Authors who don't get major public spotlights. Amy Grech is a U.S author with an impressive list of published stories on her resume, but without the single breakout hit to bring her to wide awareness.

Blanket of White sees Amy Grech going about her business of quietly approaching the dark genre from mainly oblique angles. Don't expect the traditional trappings of a horror collection, EV 2000 and Apple of my Eye are perhaps the only successful pure horror outings in the collection, you are more in a sort of Rod Sterling Twilight Zone here, with tales that hold a handful of the surreal rather than a fistful of lycanthrope hair. There's a dream like quality to the collection that harbours darker objects moving at the edge of your perception, rather than vampires lapping at your torn throat. While this is going to appeal to a whole bunch of people who prefer the quieter avenues of dark genre exploration it will equally not work for those wanting some blooded meat on the bone.

Amy Grech works best with her tales that on the surface may not appear to be dark genre journeys at all. She has a natural ability to get to the heart of the matter uncompromised by literary niceties that deaden the emotion in many other works. The titular story, Blanket of White, is both heartbreaking in it's content while maintaining an almost faery tale like naivety as the plot flows to it's preordained conclusion. Whether or not you agree with the narrator's final solution, and yes I am using those words in all their varied meanings, Grech manages to pull off a love story with one hell of a moral dilemma intertwined in the tale. Now tell me this story doesn't go to the heart of the dark genre using a scalpel to slice a path to get there! Equally Perishables, set in a post nuclear world, goes about it's business of depicting survival very quietly, building up to some shocking disclosures while keeping the narrative firmly set in the remembrance of better days when the sun shone and all was right with the world. And finally the best story in the collection, Damp Wind and Leaves uses the traditional horror setting of Halloween and a central character who is the essence of a horror fan to tell what amounts to a waking love yarn that wouldn't be out of place in a romance collection. This stuff shouldn't work but somehow Author Grech has it fired up and pumping like a well oiled machine.

Where the collection doesn't work surprisingly is when Amy Grech tries to go for the jugular in pure horror tales. Grech shows signs of being a strong writer, just not in the horror neck of the woods. Though I would temper this by pointing out U.S writing tends to be less psychologically based than the approach taken by our own breed of dark genre wanderers, possibly due to a more cynical approach to speculative fiction by readers here. Rampart for example presents an almost Brit styling to the subject matter but doesn't develop toward the final scene in a successful fashion. We go from what could be a construed as a mental aberration to the final disclosure at too fast a clip, there's no feeling of pay off for having read the story. In a similar fashion Prevention and Raven's Revenge arrive at their respective conclusions without the delivery stride one would expect from a dark genre story. There's a feeling that the conclusions have been rushed, particularly in the case of Raven's Revenge, without delivering the necessary build up or establishing plausible character reactions. In each of the darker pieces there is the feeling that events don't match the conclusion in any sort of realistic psychological fashion. Unfortunately the stories aren't grounded in enough unreality to let that one go through to the keeper.

Possibly more damning, and this will be more obvious to other writers, is the lack of Editorial input from Damnation books. Please note I in no way hold Author Amy Grech responsible for this. There are some real grammatical clangers in the collection, yes I should have noted a few, and an Editor would have asked for a few rewrites to clarify plot points, or indeed to strengthen individual stories. A professional Editor would have really helped iron out the few kinks in the collection making it a much stronger book for mine. Guess with the cost/profit structure of modern independent press something has to give. If you needed further evidence just read some of the stuff here recently, we also need a good Editor to replace the dude we lost.

Okay so a few weak points here and there, but overall I enjoyed the tone and feel of the collection and had a fun time in between the covers. Amy Grech is a strong enough writer on her own terms to demand attention, and with a good genre Editor could well become a mighty fine North American dark genre writer. The Author certainly has a distinctive approach to things, hopefully she wont turn from her natural path to more popular forms of story telling, Grech works best in delivering an all too human nightmarish atmosphere.

Blanket of White, which comes with a solid recommendation, is available from Damnation Books in ebook format for the well received price of $4.50 USD. If you check the page there is also a print version available, but P&H costs might make that a tad too pricey for Downunder readers.