I was a little surprised to find a reference to skin cells – “I should have no more attachment to her than I do the skin cells that slough off daily” (124) says Patience of her dust-double – which did give the text a more modern feeling. There’s no real indication of a specific time period, though. “Simply confess how you worship and obey Lucifer, the fallen one” (114) says one of the churchmen, removing all my doubt. I wondered briefly if this was a secondary world, but there are enough references sprinkled through (most often religious, along the lines of not suffering witches to live) to set it firmly in this one. The story takes place in your typical European mediaeval/early modern community, complete with overbearing religious orders and expected hidebound social relations (especially gender relations: more on that later). Fair warning: I haven’t read either of these, and so my assessment of Sorrow is purely as a standalone novella. There’s an author’s note at the back of the book that says Of Sorrow and Such takes place in a pre-established universe one that Slatter’s written about before in her collections Sourdough and Other Stories and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. Rescuing a local shape-shifter goes pear-shaped when gratitude doesn’t guarantee common sense, and Patience finds herself in the hands of the men whose preferred dealings with witches end in public burning… Patience Gideon lives a quiet life with her foster daughter and familiar, until another witch comes to town and trouble follows soon after. This review first appeared a little over eight months ago in Strange Horizons.

Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter