A collection of tales that sparkle like tiny, fractured gems, reminding us that things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Katherine Hetzel steps away from juvenile fantasy fiction and taps into her darker, slightly twisted side with nineteen short stories and flash fiction—some previously published—brought together for the first time in a single volume. Hollow Daughter is not only the name of a story in the collection, it embodies the underlying current flowing through these fantasy-touched tales with fanciful creations such as breeding stones and washing cloths, and thoughtfish and blood moons.
Hetzel presents imaginative tales of fortune card readers, weavers, spiritual leaders, devoted acolytes, perfect clones, and ordinary girls and women who find themselves facing extraordinary situations. Stories of when women are in control and when they have no control, and of women who are involved in real and imagined rituals of their own or other’s making.
Hetzel’s collection of tales is a pointed commentary on women in society wrapped in biblical, futuristic, imaginary, and contemporary worlds that will resonate with readers’ own lived or imagined experiences of being female.
GusGus Press
106 pp. ● 8.5x8.5
$11.95 (pb) ● $5.99 (eb)
ISBN 978-1-960373-16-8 (pb)
FICTION – Fantasy – Contemporary
FICTION – Science Fiction – General
FICTION – Short Stories (single author)
Publication date: November 21, 2023
Katherine Hetzel is the short author who tells tall tales, based in the heart of the UK. She writes fantasy adventure novels and magical short stories for children, and has also dabbled with writing short stories for adults, some of which have been long- and short-listed in competitions or published in anthologies. She loves all things rainbow, cold chicken, and liquorice.
"Interview with Katherine Hertzel Author of Kingstone, The Chronicles of Issraya & Granny Rainbow" by Josephine Park, The Book Dragon
"How to Run a Writing Workshop for Children" by Katherine Hetzel, The Writer's Cookbook