I quite enjoyed this short story collection. The stories in it were varied enough both in terms of pov (1. pers. and 3. pers.), and voice and themes. And so it never fell into the pit that some collections do where you feel like you're just reading the same story over and over again. Some of the stories had aspects of fantastical or otherworldly elements. A lot of them didn't. Most of them only spanned a few day, at most - many of them just a few hours. And I love that type of very immediate, situational stories. My favourite kind of short stories really.

I felt the writing and the stories got better as we went along. The first couple of stories weren't my favourite. But if you pick this collection up, and like me feel a little unconvinced at the beginning, I would definitely encourage you to carry on for a few more stories before you put it back down.

For the past year, I've found myself attracted short story collections. So I was excited when my request for this ARC was approved. But, not gonna lie, the eye-catching cover and title were also part of the appeal.

Anyway, I started reading. And after the first couple of stories I felt underwhelmed; not because the stories were bad, quite the opposite, actually. The thing is, they had potential to be great—and longer. But ended before anything more exciting happened. I kept wishing they wouldn't end, which is a good thing and also a bad thing, because they did.

The mundanity of the settings was it for me. Mixed in with the occasional surreal touch, all stories are so real and precious. It's clear that Lesley is a writer who can turn the ordinary and boring into engaging stories. And I love that. If you do too, read this book.

Some stories that stood out:
- The Study and Practice of Astral Projection
- The Boy in the Boat
- Sunbathing in Russia
- OMG Winn Handler Moved Next Door! (beautiful ending for the story and for the collection)

Thank you, NetGalley and Kallisto Gaia Press, for the ARC!

Really incredible short story collection. When writing fiction in such a shortened medium, it can be easy to miss the mark but this collection most certainly went above and beyond the genre. An impressive example of craft and a very moving collection!

I was offered this collection of short stories as an ARC via NetGalley. If I am honest, I have only recently started to read short stories as part of my studies for a creative writing module so I am far from an authority on this tricky artform. 'Unaccustomed to Grace' is a gem of a collection, covering a variety of challenging topics with a deft touch that I can only hope to come close to acquiring! I have already downloaded the Kindle edition so that I can dip back into this collection and make closer readings at a later date.

I loved this short story collection. Though I'm not typically one for short stories, something about this collection truly spoke to me. The stories are connected by the loose thread of loss; each story centers around loss in some way, with loss of sisters, sons, daughters, unborn children, grandchildren, etc. Many of the stories involve some sort of supernatural element - the first story opens with a walking, talking corpse.

I felt this was a beautiful collection. Quick and easy to read, but still wonderfully crafted and meaningful. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a nice, quick read.

A collection of short stories bordering on natural and unnatural while bringing out the subtle nuances of being a human. Amazing.

A strong collection of stories. I"m not sure what else to say except that these are great short tales. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

Audacious and startling, Bannatyne has a keen eye for what many of us sense but rarely see because we're moving too fast to plumb the depths of our souls. By sleight of hand, the author hooks and tugs the reader along with themes such as vengeance and redemption, regret and delight, death and the afterlife. An articulate juxtaposition of the natural world's brutality with the fragility of human constructs. I can't wait to see what Lesley Bannatyne writes next.

𝐍𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐮𝐧-𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬.
This collection of stories blew me away with terrible aches from the first tale, Corpse Walks Into A Bar. It grabbed my stony heart (I don’t know about the rest of you, but mine seemed to me to be hardening with too much feeling these past few years of worldwide brutalities and personal pains) and managed to squeeze more blood out of the old organ. In the story, a man must bury an animated corpse, one he has no connection with, but you must honor the requests of the dead, right? Maybe it will buy him some good karma? It is about people trying to remember those who are gone, like trying to cup light into your hands, girls escaping mean stories, women fighting back or looking for gravity to anchor them, settling into their troubles or swimming away from them, longing to move forward, some forgotten and left behind, struggling to do what’s right by the living, the dying, the dead. It is a voice for girls in trouble, girls that ‘things happen to’, a phrase as loaded as a gun. Here are lives defined by shocking moments, left out to dry, facing unbearable disappointments alone, when those who promised to come through never show up. Wow! I love it when I find a gem of a book and often think, some of the best writers sneak up on you! Don’t you just love when that happens?

These stories are short but powerful, loaded with emotional struggles. Haunting cries of stillborn babies and stillborn dreams takes over with the hunger of a mother’s grief. The balm sounds more like the devil’s trickery than anything godly to me in Waiting For Ivy. How did the writer conjure this strange tale? It’s creepy despite the presence of angels. Parents have dead children returned, could the couple have their sweet baby back? Should they, dare they? Hope can be cruel, it can feel like a murder can’t it? Or like slowly poisoning yourself, when you are clinging to optimism, looking for an escape hatch from misery with a mad smile on your face. Loss. Where do we put our collection of losses? It’s so terrible and beautiful being human.

These are ordinary people affected by events that would bring many of us to our knees. The Child That Went, 32 years have passed since Emily’s youngest child, son Peter, was abducted. She returns to the scene of the crime present day, right across from the café where she is speaking to the man who runs it, as she does every June. It is what followed, the inability to be the present, loving mother (to her two daughters) she was before her darling boy was taken and the not knowing what happened to Peter that weighs heavy on the reader. I don’t think it’s just me, my kids are grown adults in their twenties now, but I still have nightmares that they are small again and taken away, or harmed only to wake up in relief. These are anxiety dreams remaining from years of hypervigilance of being a mother. There are people who never get to wake up from nightmares such as these. Grief isn’t like some balloon you just pop, it hides in the little things.

There is so much yearning, in many forms, within these pages. People are worn out, cut down, and so hot to avenge wrongs, even if it means going against their good nature, against god and spilling blood, that they cannot see straight. It isn’t hard to imagine wearing their lives for a while, ponder where the winds of turmoil would land you. The subjects are heavy, so heavy. On Tuesday I Will Kill Him-A grandmother is plotting murder, you can feel the monster of senseless pain howling for release within her old bones. Can you ever even the balance when light is snuffed out in this world? Eye for an eye? I also adore the ending of The Boy In The Boat, what an original idea. Lesley Bannatyne is a hell of a writer! Hoping for a full novel from her, but I would delight in more short stories too. Please don’t keep us waiting too long! Yes, read it!!!!

Publication Date: March 15, 2022

Kallisto Gaia Press

Unaccustomed to Grace by Lesley Bannatyne is a short story collection commenting on the human condition when faced with tragedy and other extraordinary circumstances. Each story seemed to focus on what decisions could be made in a particular situation and how to handle the consequences of that decision.. I did appreciate the uniqueness in the themes of the stories and some of the supernatural elements that really made the character's stories fade into the grey area when choices were made, rather than being totally cut and dry. I feel that this also made the characters more relatable and sucked me into their stories.

This is the first short story collection that I have read and for a debut I feel as though this author did very well. However, overall I gave the book a 3 star rating. Although I was connected to the characters in most of the stories I found myself either wanting more or wanting some kind of twist to the story or more of an impactful statement at the end of these stories. Its hard for me to pinpoint exactly what was missing, though I do feel that my novice in reading such collections as this has impacted my experience. I would recommend this book to lovers of short story collections and the paranormal as well as those who enjoy character study as each character could be analyzed further than can be done in a review.

Content warnings for loss of an infant/child, mentions of child abuse, loss of a limb.

Unaccustomed to Grace. A fabulous little debut short story collection from Lesley Bannatyne (to be published March 15th). Lesley has previously written at length about Halloween which definitely comes across in this collection of reality skewed stories. I would recommend for readers of Ottessa Moshfegh although it’s a heightened take on what Moshfegh has written.

I personally have issues with short story collections, it’s difficult for me to enjoy them as a whole project as I’m constantly comparing the to one another. There will always be stories that fell flat because of this comparison. Although the majority of these stories were spectacular I found that I wanted those to be fully fledged novels in themselves.

Unaccustomed to Grace by Leslie Pratt Bannatyne is a fantastic example of how the ordinary and mundane can converge with the extraordinary and unusual to create tales that are engaging enough that you invest fully until the very last word. Bannatyne's characters are real and so relatable that you forget that some of the things they are experiencing can't really be happening... or can they? I highly recommend picking up this excellent assemblage of short stories!

The only thing I knew about author Lesley Pratt Bannatyne was that she is referred to as the “Queen of Halloween” (for her expertise on the history, literature, and celebration of that hallowed day), so I thought that this short story collection would be spooky and weird. And it’s really not. Despite the first story involving a reanimated corpse (and a later one featuring dishevelled angels that interfere in human affairs), the plots are complex but recognisable, the characters are fully fleshed out and relatable, and each story mounts to a moment of growth or catharsis; moments of unaccustomed grace. I was consistently intrigued by the premises and often moved by the emotional connections that I had forged with the characters; I thought I was going to have a campy good time but found a thoroughly satisfying literary experience instead. Who could ask for more?

A phenomenal work of literary art. I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates emotion and heart in the stories they read. Beautiful!