The entirety of the book is so excitingly engrossing that it’s a burden to have to choose one as “best,” but being the first story that I read by her, it hooked me. After reading The Lake, I promptly returned the book and requested that my local feminist bookstore carry it and order a copy for me. After reading a positive write-up in a library review journal, I immediately purchased Ghost Summer for the library in which I work. The Lake is the introductory story in novel and non-fiction writer Tananarive Due’s first collection of short stories. The tales below are a sampling of five feminist short stories that do indeed leave us with a “rising sense of dread” because sometimes, the horror is too personal.

The horror delves into reality, where much can be hidden beneath the facade of such vanities as a life of wealth, the perfect marriage, or an idyllic community.

When you combine horror with the feminist short story, you enter a whole new realm that’s even more terrifying than any Pinhead from Hellraiser or Damien from the Omen. Joyce Carol Oates once so perfectly wrote, “One criterion for horror fiction is that we are compelled to read it swiftly, with a rising sense of dread, and so total a suspension of ordinary skepticism, we inhabit the material without question and virtually as its protagonist: we can see no way out except to go forward.” This quote perfectly encapsulates why so many love the horror genre it transports its reader to another world where one can observe, and be an entirely new entity, whether person, monster, witch, or troll. Spotlight on Five Feminist-Minded Short Stories with Elements of Horror & Sci-Fi

Tananarive due the lake