Otherworld Chills, by Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong is right up there with J.K. Rowling when it comes to creating supplementary material for her books. She has written more than fifty(!) short stories and novellas set in her Women of the Otherworld universe. Seven of these are now available in the anthology Otherworld Chills, which consists of six previously-published works and one new story.

If you're an Armstrong superfan, you are definitely going to enjoy this collection. The first (“Brazen”) and last (“Baby Boom”) installments are particularly strong, and introduce new and interesting developments for beloved characters. The middle stories are less memorable, ranging from entertaining but underdeveloped (“Amityville Horrible”) to slightly saccharine (“The Puppy Plan”). Of course, most Armstrong superfans probably already read these stories in their previous editions, which means they are now stuck shelling out $16 for the sole original work in Otherworld Chills—a “novella” that's a mere 34 pages long. Here's hoping that story is eventually released in a different format, too, because that is a lot of money per page.

Review based on publisher-provided copy.