This anthology interested me because it seemed to describe a very narrow topic: Whether mystery, fantasy, or romance, what happens *after* the ball?
Honestly, I should have known better. As a unifying topic, it stands as a reminder not to wear blinders. The concept of a dance is sometimes touched on in a most abstract way, but all of these stories do reach it, abstractly or not. Two of them stay with me even now: " Kerygma in Waltz Time," by Charlotte Gumanaam, twists time and point of view and the idea of really immersing oneself in story, and had me emailing a friend begging her to buy this anthology, because I really want to know what she thinks about it. And "The Dress," by Lynne April Brown, is just a jewel of a short story, perfect in every way, that takes the theme of several fairy tales and turns them inside out and upside down. O. Henry would not be ashamed of this one.
Some of these stories are excerpts from longer works, and understanding and appreciating them and their characters properly really needs that context, but they manage to be interesting nonetheless. Overall, though, it's a really, really good anthology, and I recommend it highly.
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