Among the Lilies

Mills (Moriah) delivers an impressive debut collection of 12 weird tales anchored by the novella “The Account of David Stonehouse, Exile,” whose unspecified time and setting—is it postapocalyptic or otherworldly?—contributes to the sense of strangeness of its narrator’s experiences. A similar calculated vagueness colors a number of the other stories, including “Below the Falls,” presented as a diary whose missing pages encourage the reader to fill in the gaps of its apparently supernatural events, and “A Sleeping Life” (a nod to the eerie expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) whose staccato of short sections represent the disjointed impressions of its somnambulist narrator. Mills grounds his stories in considerable realistic detail, lending even the more surreal moments both gravity and tangibility. His work is sure to find a readership among fans of macabre and outré fiction. (Sept.)