Thank You Goodreads Giveaways for the physical book. Thank You Netgalley, Dreamscape Media, and Lena Valencia where I was granted access to the audio, narrated by Jess Nahikian. I enjoy tandem reading, and this is the most ideal way to absorb a book so it is always nice when the narrator has a nice voice that you can hear and understand. This book started out with a bang that you questioned what you just read but also enjoyed it in some weird way. It was a great collection of short stories that stay with you. My favorites were Dogs, You Can Never Be too Sure, Trogloxene, The Reclamation, and Reaper Ranch. In fact, I think I will never forget how I felt reading dogs and when I finished it. My heart was racing so hard. Loved it!

I deliberately requested Mystery Lights as a Netgalley audio arc because it is so far from my typical genre. I haven't read short stories since middle school English when daily we read aloud works from O. Henry, Mark Twain, Shirley Jackson and the like. Those were great experiences when stories filled the room and there was always enough time for discussion and appreciation of the intent (or perceived intent as interpreted by budding geniuses at Bayshore Junior High circa early 1980s).

I won't give a review of the numerous individual stories - all had a similar theme involving women, the unknown, the fearful and all were set in the American Southwest whose beauty and isolation are a perfect backdrop.

I enjoyed the book and at slightly over 7 hours, this was a great way to spend a day and a half.

My one criticism involves the audio. One narrator is used. She does a fine job, but the style of the book could be improved. With only one voice, and not a lot of attempt at voicing characters in unique sounds or accents, as a listener I struggled. Short stories are.....short. Suddenly, it's THE END. But, no 'the end' is announced. Bang, story over. Next story begins. It took me a while to get into the flow of this sudden ending/beginning and I lost minutes of set-up when realizing, "oh, we have moved on." My brain had to play catch up.

Yes, a new title is read, but if you have ever listened to an audio book you know that words are words and a delineation between old story and new story needed something different. Perhaps a second narrator. Some woman reader (the sex is important because of the story subjects) with a terrifically different sounding voice could have alternated and that would have helped the listener quickly realize - new one starting now.

Overall I'm really glad I took a chance at this completely different genre and will absolutely be checking out author Lena Valencia for additional books to read.

Each story weaves together with one another - all have echoes of repeating themes and tableaus that thread together. Liminal spaces and the haze of the supernatural that magnify the microaggressions of the everyday. Women’s voices moving through deserts, the haunting choices of the men in their lives, and various familial relationships. Artists, wildlings, writers, survivors, and ever-observant - all these narrators give a piece of a larger whole. And most all use the mystical or the unknown to amplify the teeth of womanhood as we navigate through the landmines that are unfortunately so commonplace now. Poignant and bloody and stoic, a very beautiful collection of stories.