I've gone looking for this book and it appears to be out of print. Only copies that are available are now in used stores at above retail prices.
I have a commitment to my followers to only review books that are widely available (in some sort of format) and unfortunately this one is not. :(

4 very solid stars for a wonderful read.

I wasn't one to read short story collections up until last year, so I've had my fair share of them ever since then. For some reason, Uncommon Miracles seemed real jam-packed with stories to me, while those stories (18) also packed a punch of their own. I was incredibly drawn into Julie C. Day's several worlds, and I was looking forward to seeing what the next story would be like. She's got some incredible worldbuilding skills, and isn't afraid to use them!

The reason for the missing star is that some stories were a bit hard to follow ("Signal and Stone" springs to mind first) But this is really no big deal, of course I wouldn't enjoy every single one of 18 stories equally.

My favourite story is probably "A Pinhole of Light" (not only was it expertly written, but also bonus: it reminded me of Clive Barker's "Books of Blood". I won't go into details, read and find out!), followed closely by "One Thousand Paper Cranes" (literally followed, the stories are in that order in the book as well) Also, "Florida Miracles"

I'm looking forward to Julie C. Day's next book(s)!

This gorgeous collection of dark and tangled tales is for the lover of the strangely beautiful. Each short story is disquieting yet bizarrely poetic. Releasing the imagination, this compilation of weird fiction blends horror, fantasy, and magical realism into stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always unnerving.

While the topics are extremely varied, one thing that binds them together is her portrayal of the characters. While they may be broken or flawed, they are always rather stoically represented but always with unyielding compassion. You feel like these may be people or locations you know or have seen before. Even the locations feel familiar, yet in her stories, anything is possible.

I'll admit it was the cover that first caught my attention but I stayed for the inventive, surreal fantasy world that Julie Day presented in each story. Varied but with an undertow of common themes, Uncommon Miracles was a pleasure to read.

This collection of short stories really didn't do it for me, but I think those who like their fiction on the weird and confusing end of modern gothic would enjoy it. For me, I spent most of the stories pretty baffled as to what was going on - I think that maybe 10% more info in each one would have satisfied me enough as to the situation to be able to engage with the characters, but as it stood, I felt utterly detached from the characters because I didn't know what they were doing. It felt like an attempt to create a Nightvale-esque series of nightmarish happenings, without the grasp of atmosphere that the Nightvale writers command.

A couple of minor points. Many of the characters in different stories have the same names - Veronica and Sylvia turn up a few times - and I wasn't sure whether they were supposed to be the same people or not. The same place names are also used, but I didn't feel like the stories tied together enough to build a picture of a cohesive world, if that was supposed to be what was happening. Since these stories were all published in different places at different times, I don't think that there are meant to be links between them, so perhaps this should have been tweaked when the stories were put together. Also, the editing is a little sloppy, as there are a fair few misplaced apostrophes and a couple of words that look like they've been inserted in error.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this, but I was left feeling like that was very much on me, rather than on the book!

My full review appears on Weekend Notes. Thank you to the publisher for sharing this one. I really enjoyed it and will look out for more stories by this author.

This is a collection of some fairly decent sci fi stories. Most are well-written, being fully fleshed-out ideas with recognizable characters and plot elements. Not all of the stories themselves were appealing to me, simply due to subject matter, but that's OK. She did a good job and it's worth a read.