Into The Gloaming is a compilation of three short stories released individually by Samhain Publishing in 2007. For your convenience, I have cut and paste the reviews of those stories in one place.

Carolan Ivey's Abhainn's Kiss is steeped in lush Welsh mythology and atmosphere and the first chapter detailing the birth of the heroine Abhainn is a very gripping read since the baby Abby's life hangs in the balance due to the inexperience of the Spinner that is working of the thread of Abby's life. This Spinner, Cadwyn, ends up inadvertenty intertwining Abby's life with that of a human's.

Abby is an Asrai, a race of the Fae folk associated with water. The Asrai is cursed never to show themselves in sunlight due to a High Mother in the past getting too carried away with her dalliance with a mortal that she ended up breaking some kind of sacred tradition and causing the death of King Arthur. The Asrai develop a phobia when it comes to water as a result and they are caught in bright daylight, they dissolve into water. Back to Abby, her poor mother did not survive the birth of her child (the sun made an untimely entrance) and Abby was raised by the midwife Nuala. Nuala tries to keep Abby sheltered from the evil world out there.

Our hero, Michael Craig, does not fully remember this but twenty years ago, he stumbled into the corner of the Fae world where Nuala and Abby lived and befriended Abby. Today, he returns to the Isle of Inisghriann as an adult. His family owns a successful textile business. Several months ago, mysterious crates shows up at the office containing a kind of thread that is fine yet very tensile. This thread could have saved the family business so Michael wants to locate the source of this thread. The only clue he has is a parchment in one of the crates bearing the name of the island. He is soon reunited with Abby.

Abby all this while has lived her own life in the Fae world, not aware of her history or origins or that she is the last of the Asrai, until trolls start showing up wanting to do bodily harm to her. Fortunately Nuala is around to help Michael and Abby realize that their destinies are intertwined and they can break the curse of the Asrai if they put their minds to it. You see, prior to this, the Spinner in her inexperience ended up allowing Abby to receive the ability to walk in sunlight while remaining protected from all who wished to harm her. She is save the world from destroying itself, how wonderful, although she may have some competition from the Terrans when it comes to that. However, the spell has just recently worn off - hence the trolls - so Michael will have to step in and do that Prince Valiant thing in order to protect Abby while Abby travels to a Great Gathering in Avalon that will take place in the next full moon.

Abhainn's Kiss has a well-drawn and atmospheric setting but unfortunately, the fascinating backdrop of the story is much more interesting than the main characters. Abby is a rather flat stereotype of a child-like damsel-in-distress complete with corny soapbox about saving the environment thinly disguised as wide-eyed bewilderment about our self-destructing ways. Michael is the reluctant knight in shining armor but there isn't much to his bland personality to make him memorable. The characters are just there in the story. Likewise, the romance isn't interesting because it is presented as some kind of predestined fait accompli. I'm told that they are in love but I don't see any credible lovey-dovey interaction between these two characters.

There is plenty of great atmosphere in Abhainn's Kiss and the set-up involving the curse of the Asrai is most fascinating. It's a pity, therefore, the main characters' quest to break the curse turn out to be a standard destiny/fate/soulmate fantasy romance that is too ordinary for the enchanting and well-drawn setting.

In Isabo Kelly's The Heron's Call, our heroine Rowena is an "sword sworn" of the "Aleanian Temple" who is traveling to the land belonging to Dorjan, a wizard that is currently holding the "Valen horse clan's oracle". Rowena is carrying out a mission given to her by the Temple to rescue this oracle. While she is fighting off a bunch of goons hired by Dorjan to halt her progress, our hero Kael Zyhn shows up to knock these goons out so that our heroine doesn't have to kill them, pull a Lady McBeth act, and start washing her hands every night. She knows the hero, by the way, even if she hasn't seen him in twelve years. Kael is a "Heron sword mage". He's a super sword mage because he's the first one in a long time to craft his own "mage sword". Next thing I know, he's calling Rowena his "raynia" or "soul twin" and I go, "No! Not the dreaded S word! Aaaah!"

I am touched by Kael's intense longing for his raynia.

Nothing would help until he was buried deep inside her, bonding her together.

Shall I get the spade, dear Kael?

It's hard not to be moved by Kael's desire and persistent stalking of Rowena. It takes a special twenty-year old man to recognize a fourteen year old girl as his raynia that he wants to bury himself deep, deep inside and hold on to that longing for the next twelve years. Most pedophiles will lose interest once the little girl in question turns, say, eighteen so Kael is really something special. That kiss he stole on a fourteen year old girl has only hardened his, er, zeal to make Rowena his. The only reason he didn't move in to act on his true love all this while is because he was too busy forging the mage sword (not an euphemism for self-love in case you're wondering). The best he can do is to enter Rowena's dreams for some naughty dreamshags in a plane where the cops cannot break down the door and charge him for statutory rape. Now, Kael can't wait to show his big mage sword to Rowena.

I understand that a mage sword is a sword with special properties - Rowena's mother has a mage sword that disrupts magical spells aimed at the bearer of the sword, for example - but I have no idea what is the Aleania, the Heron, and pretty much every other jargon in this story mean. On the bright side, the story is still coherent because while not everything is made clear in this story, the main concepts vital to the reader's comprehension of what is going on, such as the mage sword issue, are explained adequately to give me an idea of what is going on.

Nonetheless, the storyline of The Heron's Call is still a cheesy and formulaic barbarian love story with little variation to the whole destiny/soulmate/dreamshag theme. The characters seem more preoccupied with having sex rather than to save the poor oracle - she can't be too important, I guess. Kael is a standard hero in this kind of cheese-and-sorcery stories although he's much more politically correct compared to some of his Neanderthal counterparts. He is willing to make all kinds of concessions to accommodate her once they get married. Rowena on the other hand drops the F bomb often and behaves more like a typical lead female character in an urban fantasy story, so she often seems out of place in a cheese-and-sorcery story.

While better-written than most cheese-and-sorcery tales out there, The Heron's Call nonetheless doesn't strike me as particularly memorable. I have no problems reading this story and some of the unintentionally amusing aspects of the plot give me a good laugh, but the story just doesn't stand out for me.

JC Wilder's Thief Of Hearts is set in 2024. It's a short story revolving around two thieves, Harper "Houdini" McRae and Chase (no last name given), breaking into crime boss Ross "Blackie" Ryan's office one night while Ross is throwing a party downstairs to retrieve some incriminating photos that Blackie is using to blackmail his victims. Harper and Chase are not working together, they pretty much bump into each other when they happen to come out to play on the same night. To complicate matters, five years ago these two were lovers until Harper found Chase in a compromising situation with the woman next door. Predictably, these two get caught because they actually forget what they are doing to rekindle some old issues on the spot and they have to now play lovers to get out of the house without arousing Blackie's suspicions.

To be honest, these two thieves won't win any awards soon for being giant intellectuals - getting carried away by past issues to the point that they get caught is not going to get them listed on any of the World's Greatest Mastermind lists anytime soon. However, I have to hand it to Ms Wilder - she manages to insert sexual elements in this story without making me stop and say, "Hey, that's absurd!" It is rather absurd how much sex these two can get away with doing when they are supposed to be on the run but Ms Wilder gets me so caught up in a "What are they doing? Oh my goodness, that's kinda... hot!" way.

In a longer story, the whole big misunderstanding issue will bleed into wallbanger territory but here, the characters get over the issue without too much fuss. Multiple orgasms tend to put one in a more magnanimous mood, I suppose. The story feels complete despite its length - the build-up and wind-down of the story never comes off as rushed or underdeveloped. The characterization and resolution are adequate, just right, and I never feel overwhelmed by badly-explained jargons. As a result, I find it very easy to get into the story and enjoy reading about Harper and Chase. They are so cheerfully unapologetic about their job with zero pearl-clutching about anything that it's fun to get into the whole vicarious escapism of the story. The sexual tension between those two crackles so I find it too easy to overlook the sillier aspects of this story.

I find Thief Of Hearts is a breezy and sexy little escapist romp. It will be nice if this story is longer because I'd love to spend more time with these two naughty cat burglars, but it's okay, everything is still good with this one.

Taking an average of my scores of each story give Into The Gloaming a rating of 76.

This book at Amazon.com

This book at Amazon UK

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