A review by fsethompson
Coppice & Brake, by James Van Pelt, Andrew Jensen, CM Harris, Brian K. Lowe, C. Patrick Neagle, Jeff Dosser, Julie Nováková, Gabrielle Bleu, Friedrich Sarah E. Thompson, Joanna Michal Hoyt, Rachel A. Brune, Karter Mycroft, Edmund Schluessel, R.K. Duncan, Elizabeth Donald, Rebecca Dale, David J. Thirteen, Holly Lyn Walrath, Voss Foster, Spencer Koelle, Avra Margariti, Richard Leis, Shannon Scott, J.Z. Ting
5.0
Considering I wrote one of the 23 stories featured in this anthology, I really wanted to like it when I finally got the chance to see what kind of fiction I was being featured among. But even with high hopes, I was still really blown away by this anthology. Normally with an anthology, I'll count myself as satisfied if half of the stories seem okay to me - Coppice & Brake, however, only had two out of 23 stories not quite click for me. Any one of the remaining stories could be one of my favourite horror pieces of 2020. 'Cold Dread and Hot Slices' and 'The Yogurt Swimmer' were absolute knockouts that keep creeping back into my thoughts and sending shivers down my spine at completely random times.
If you'd like to give the anthology a go but are concerned about potentially upsetting content, I've compiled a list of content warnings for each story in the collection! I've done my best to keep the warnings contextless to avoid spoilers, so if you care more about spoilers than warnings you probably shouldn't check out the list before you read, and if you want any warnings that aren't listed or a more robust explanation of a certain topic, feel free to ask me!
Here's the list:
If you'd like to give the anthology a go but are concerned about potentially upsetting content, I've compiled a list of content warnings for each story in the collection! I've done my best to keep the warnings contextless to avoid spoilers, so if you care more about spoilers than warnings you probably shouldn't check out the list before you read, and if you want any warnings that aren't listed or a more robust explanation of a certain topic, feel free to ask me!
Here's the list: