Welcome to Day 3 of our Small Press Week. Today’s small press is Small Beer Press (small beer, for those who don’t know, is an older term for a low-alcohol brew; it used to be that drinking small beer was safer than drinking water); Kelly Link is one of the founders of this press. She also happens to be the co-editor of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections, as well as a short-story author in her own right. She lives in Massachusetts, and has a B.A. from Columbia and an M.F.A. from UNC-Greensboro; her stories have won the Nebula, the James Tiptree, Jr., and the World Fantasy Awards. Her second collection was published by Harcourt.

Stranger Things Happen is a collection of eleven stories; they range from deceptively simple tales that may or may not be about Nancy Drew, to stories that border on horror, passing through several fairy tales and ghost stories in the middle. A few of them are in second person; some feature male narrators, some feature female narrators, some feature children as narrators. Generally speaking, they’re all a little bit . . . strange. There’s some element in each tale — whether it’s the fact that the narrator is dead, or the fact that both main characters have the same name, or the presence of the Donner party — that is just a bit unsettling.

I should mention that this book is available from Small Beer Press as a Creative Commons download; for those who are unaware for my penchant for Free (Legal) Books on the Internet, please see here. Of course, I do encourage readers to purchase a physical copy of the book, but if one would like a taste of these stories to see if they fit one’s sensibilities, the Creative Commons download is a brilliant idea. Two of her other story collections are published via traditional methods and traditional (read: large press) publishers (Magic for Beginners and Pretty Monsters, her first YA collection); although I can’t guarantee that the stories in all three volumes are similar, I would guess she hasn’t changed drastically, rendering Stranger Things Happen unusable as a gateway into her worlds.

I would recommend not reading this collection while eating, as I was. Even though nothing may have been overtly gross and gory, once in a while Ms. Link has a particularly evocative turn of phrase that succeeded in turning my stomach. I credit that as a testament to her writing, not my squeamishness (which, in terms of reading books, is almost nonexistent). My favorite story, right at this moment, was either “The Specialist’s Hat,” which is almost, but not quite, a straight-up ghost story, or “Louise’s Ghost,” which is also almost — but not quite — a straight-up ghost story. “The Specialist’s Hat” had a familiar-sounding setup — single dad takes his twin daughters with him to live in a haunted house while he writes a biography of the house’s former inhabitant — but Ms. Link’s skill in handling the elements of the story made it much more than that. “Louise’s Ghost” involved two women named Louise, one of the Louises’ daughter, Anna, a ghost that was haunting the other Louise, and eight cellists. Somehow she generally made it clear which Louise she meant, but the dialogue back and forth and the gradual revelations of the differences between the Louises made it a very enjoyable read.

Overall, this is not a collection for YAs; the stories are generally fairly dark (although not completely dark) and involve the use of sophisticated writing techniques. “The Girl Detective,” near the end, is presented in an odd hybrid outline form that requires a bit of deciphering; an earlier story, “Flying Lessons,” has some of the same structure. I’d definitely recommend it for those looking for something just a bit off the wall; those who are used to straightforward stories that start at the beginning, go on until they reach the end, and then stop, will definitely find this unlike that. Some may enjoy the ride through Ms. Link’s worlds as an opportunity to stretch, though. 4.5/5 stars.