Dark Duets by Penny Jones and Teika Marija Smits
I would like to thank Hersham Horror for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Hersham Horror
Published – Out Now
Price – £9.99 paperback £3.00 ebook
Dark Duets 1:
SUGAR AND SPICE BY PENNY JONES
Once upon a time there were two sisters, but their life was anything but a fairytale.
THE UNSILENCING BY TEIKA MARIJA SMITS
A mysterious ailment strikes a schoolful of children, rendering them mute and motionless. One mother takes it into her own hands to find the evil truth behind it all.
The Horror story and the fairy tale is an interesting area to consider. In many ways it is our first exposure to the monster, that bad things can happen to innocent people and that not everyone has our best interests at heart – all interesting lessons for a child. Do we remember the poisoned apples and pricked thumbs to the rather dull happy endings? Perhaps for those of us who did that is what has pushed us to the darker tales where no happy ending is in sight. Now in Dark Duets 1 Penny Jones and Teika Marija Smits have two very different stories about parents and children that are in dialogue with the fairy tale and how reality can make things a lot darker than we expect.
In Sugar and Spice by Penny Jones Maggie and Hannah are having a very hard life after the death of their mother and the arrival of their would-be stepmother Tina. This is an incredibly hard punchy tale of lost children, and I really wish I could tell you there will be a happy ending. But I often think horror is there to make us look at things we’d rather shy away from and Jones as always writes characters with a fascinating psychological edge. Hannah and Maggie are pretty much left to their own devices – no food in the house, a drink father a cruel mother and so in the style of a fairy tale they try to avoid their evil stepmother but here the is no rescue. The story covers child abuse, poverty and child exploitation and while never exploitative its an incredibly sobering and dark read that despite the uncomfortable subject matter makes you think about h children who are getting lost in the cracks of a system that rarely seems to care or notice. If the fairy tale is also designed to be cautionary this feels an appropriate one for adults to digest however bitter it tastes.
In The Unsilencing by Teika Marija Smits we move more into the fantastical with a contemporary dark tale that has some angles for parenthood. Tonya is our central character and lives a fairly ordinary wife when a strange event impacts the school that her son Josh attends. Over 100 children are suddenly non-verbal, unable to react or respond. Scientists and doctors are stumped but Tonya notes the presence of the street’s resident curmudgeon Ken who hates noisy children with a passion and seems to have a way of getting what he wants from everyone. In many ways Smits here has a traditional fairy curse to deal with, but what stood out for me is this story also has a metaphor for parents who suddenly find their child has special needs. Smits explores how a parent has to adapt to caring almost full time, the pressures that creates within a family and complications if there is another child in the mix too. Tonya has to learn adapt and sacrifice and again if a horror makes us look that is a good thing to consider. It also helps that Ken is truly repellent and powerful villain meaning that there is not immediate fix for the story takes a few years to unfold. There is a resolution and we always have to be careful here that magic undoing a medical condition can be ableist but I think this story does show that Josh isn’t suddenly fixed and indeed there are signs the experience has left a mark but it also is a tale reminding us that parents in such circumstances have a lot of work to do often without much wider support.
Think of this book as a hard shot of dark reality followed by a chaser that burns but perhaps will warm you a little after the cold chill of the first and it’s a highly recommended experience.
