The Hair Wreath and Other Stories
Girls and boys disappear; couples caught in the heat and suppressed rage of urban life are haunted by the ghosts of their own making; neighbourhoods drift in the murky atmosphere of buried emotions, where the echoes of distrust and dissonance prove that something just isn't right.
These strange stories gather and weave themselves together into a wreath of memories, rife with an atmospheric and ominous creep redolent of Shirley Jackson. This eerie collection illustrates the disconnect amongst people and the places they inhabit, the gap that allows the supernatural to flourish.
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Halli Villegas is a writer, editor, and the publisher of Tightrope Books. She has published two books of poetry: Red Promises (Guernica Editions, 2001) and In the Silence Absence Makes (Guernica Editions, 2004). The Hair Wreath, a collection of ghost stories, was published in 2010 by ChiZine Publications.
"Villegas's debut collection offers 19 tales that nicely blend ordinary characters with sudden and unexplained supernatural threats . . . "His Ghost," disturbing on multiple levels, tells the tale of an obsessive man in search of his muse. "Salvage," a haunting set on a spaceship, is efficiently creepy. "An Unexpected Thing" is a solid, straightforward revenge story with a nasty undercurrent . . . "D in the Underworld," in which a woman searches for her missing daughter, rises above the rest. Fans of creepy, non-gory horror will appreciate this collection. . . ."
--Publishers Weekly
"[F]or the most part these stories are very finely thought through; their language is precise. And, on the whole, the emotional effects are successful. It's a strong debut collection, marking a writer worth watching."
--Rover Arts Review
"Ghosts and other mysterious forces intrude on the characters in the new collection of dark fiction from Toronto-based writer Halli Villegas. . . . On the whole, this collection proves that the most effective ghost stories are the ones that leave you with more than just questions."
--Quill & Quire
"Overall, the collection is a modern twist on urban ghost stories, weaving the idea of dark spiritual encounters with modern lifestyles always getting in the way. . . . A perfect read for a quiet night alone, in the seeming tranquility of the city."
--Broken Pencil
