That’s why it took me longer than I expected to compile this list of some of my favourites from the last year or so. It certainly wasn’t for any lack of viewing material!

5. Away

Although the science fiction drama Away (Netflix 2020) rather painfully crayon-boxed their assortment of cultural stereotypes with this script, Hilary Swank still managed to transcend the tropes in her performance as Commander Emma Green. As a mother who didn’t choose her career over her family but rather shared with her family the sacrifices that career demanded, she triumphed over the false dilemma society tries to impose on so many. Tautly thrilling in spite of its inherent clichés.

4. Katla

Katla (Netflix 2021) has to come with a host of trigger warnings, but its starkly original premise and complex characterizations made it well worth it for me. Sisters Grima (Guðrún Ýr Eyfjörð) and Ása (Íris Tanja Flygenring) represent a stunningly fresh take on the myth of dark and light twins and how we approach both grief and life. Often frightening and always heart-wrenching, this series portrayed not only these sisters but all the women in the tiny community as the real catalysts for the emotional health (or dysfunction) of the men around them. And of course, Katla, the volcano, is the most powerful feminine presence of all.

3. Truth Seekers

I am SO sad this series is not being continued! Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Truth Seekers (Amazon Prime 2020) was a rollicking comedic drama about paranormal investigators that exquisitely executed the balance between fear and hilarity and real human depth. Susie Wokoma positively stole the show (no easy feat when Pegg and Frost are on screen) as the anxiety-riddled and agoraphobic Helen, whose disabilities, though debilitating, cannot diminish her extravagant personality and remarkable skills. It’s delightful to see a supporting character so terrifically and tenderly fleshed out.

2. Post Mortem: Nobody Dies In Skarnes

If you haven’t discovered the 2021 Norwegian Netflix Original Drama Post Mortem: Nobody Dies In Skarnes, you don’t even know how bleak your life is without it. A very dark comedy that somehow manages to make zombie-vampires, or possibly vampire-zombies, perfectly realistic, this inventive take on the genre will have you laughing and gasping by turns. And nothing says strong female protagonist quite like Live Hallengen (Kathrine Thorborg Johansen) actually slaying the patriarchy when her own father tries to burn her alive.

1. Unforgotten

My favourite female portrayal I watched last year was Nicola Walker’s DCI Cassie Stuart, in the ITV thriller series Unforgotten (2015-2018.) I’m a huge fan of Walker, precisely because she has such a gift for rendering flawed characters with depth of feeling. It’s not Cassie Stuart’s femininity that makes her irresistible – it’s her humanity. And really, this is the key to writing or portraying any character, be they heroine or villain or passing observer. Not every character needs to be strong. They don’t need to be brave, or unselfish, or powerful, although they will all have moments when they can seize that nature, if only briefly. What they need, and what women genuinely want to see in terms of representation, is simply to be real. To be human. To be whole. And that will be enough.

Cassondra Windwalker’s Hold My Place turns a dark eye toward the unrelenting power of obsession in this haunting, seductive tale perfect for a dark read around Valentine’s Day. Mixing lyrical prose with simmering terror, Hold My Place is a modern gothic horror worthy of Shirley Jackson’s nightmares and Daphne DuMaurier’s dangerous lovers.

Hold My Place is out now from Black Spot Books

The post Top Five Strong Women on TV by author Cassondra Windwalker appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.

Recently shifting its focus predominantly to horror, award-winning independent publisher Black Spot Books’ upcoming list includes projects from debut authors to Bram Stoker Award-Winners as well as well-known names in the film/TV community.

The first project of 2022 is Cassondra Windwalker’s Hold My Place (out on 25 January 2022), a thrilling and emotional tale of obsession and possession in which Sigrun, a 30-something librarian, finds herself in a whirlwind romance, only to discover that her new lover carries some supernatural baggage.

We’re delighted to give horror fans the UK exclusive for the cover reveal (above), plus an extract of the book…

This wasn’t the romantic yearning penned by the writers of Regency romances or those luridly illustrated books whose covers featured bodybuilding Highland chiefs dressed in nothing but kilts. This was a blood-sickness. If I could have driven him from my thoughts, I would have, so wretched and ragged I felt with the constant pluck, pluck, pluck of his absence on my consciousness. He was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. My brain conjured endless contrived conversations between us as I roamed the deserted stacks at work. I dreamed of him and woke, sweating, consumed with a strange, excited anxiety, staring into the darkness and unable to retrieve any details of his phantasm.

By the end of the second week, I realized I must have secretly hoped time and distance would prove some antidote to his wonderful poison, that space would clear my vision, show me all we were was crass and common and selfish and fleeting. Hoped I’d save myself from myself before it could go too far. While he could still maintain some pretense of honesty. Hoped all the peacock feathers and stardust would show themselves only false hope and detritus in the end, cheap and pathetic and completely beneath me.

Instead, day and night, each cell in my body tended toward an intersection that hourly grew farther away. We’d exchanged numbers, true, in some unspoken nod toward a potential apocalypse we both wanted to pretend was impossible. A mistress—no, that’s not right. As much as my inner melodrama-mama craved the title, I knew I hadn’t earned it. I wasn’t even an illicit lover. Just an unacknowledged friend. Regardless, an unacknowledged friend can’t send texts. Can’t cling for survival in the awful isolation of quarantine to another woman’s husband.

You might assume that didn’t matter to me, that I wouldn’t have attached myself so hopelessly to him if it had, but it did matter, more than I can express. Even now, after all this time, I sometimes dream of those jade eyes bidding me goodbye. I wake up, breathless, choking, my throat full of aquamarine waters and my fingers dripping with seaweed. I think: I nearly drowned there, and something in me is disappointed I survived when I might have been subsumed by her. Other days, I imagine I see her eyes flashing at me beneath my lashes in the mirror, and I wonder which of us truly made it to the surface in the end.

Lindy Ryan, President and Founder, launched Black Spot Books with the goal of bringing genre-bending, innovative fiction to market, and has prioritised acquiring projects from debut and underrepresented authors. “Black Spot Books has always looked for projects that make our hearts pound and pulses race. The same passion for discovering fresh storytelling and amplifying underrepresented voices will continue to drive our catalogue as we acquire projects that promote diversity and representation within the horror community.”

Further novels, novellas, and anthologies will follow, including Under Her Skin (out 5 April 2022, Black Spot Books’ inaugural women-in-horror poetry showcase which includes over eighty poems from women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes in dark verse, as well as a foreword by Linda D. Addison, illustrations by Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Marge Simon, and cover artwork by Lynne Hansen.

Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker is out 25 January. 

The post Hold My Place: Cover reveal and excerpt appeared first on Sci-Fi Tips.