This Strange Way of Dying

In this haunting collection, Innsmouth Free Press publisher and editor Moreno-Garcia weaves 15 tales of weirdness, beauty, magic and longing. Shifting effortlessly among science fiction, magic realism, and horror, she toys with emotions and expectations. Her unsettling tales, often inconclusive or ambiguous, linger in the imagination. Some of the most memorable include the Lovecraftian "Flash Frame," about a cult obsessed with an old movie; the title romance about a woman who becomes engaged to Death; "Stories with Happy Endings," which features a disappointingly mundane vampire; and "The Doppelgangers," about a girl whose embarrassing parents spawn eerie yet possibly improved duplicates. Moreno-Garcia draws on her Mexican heritage to infuse her work with folklore and myth as well as local flavor, with several stories set in Mexico City. Even the less satisfying offerings have a special appeal in their emotional resonance and blurring of genre boundaries. Agent: Eddie Schneider, JABberwocky Literary Agency. (Mar.)