With some of the most beguiling prose this side of The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Jordan Kurella's When I was Lost conjures visions from beyond the fields we know. Majestic, often mournful, full of dark wonder and grit, these stories bridge the gap between whimsy and modernist realism, between awe and regret and spectral terror. These are no escapist fairy romances, these are mature stories of pain, of sorrow, of irrevocable loss. And they have at their core a very real, very contemporary concern: to enchant, to reimagine, and to find a new path through the heartbreak. Some books are about magic, and some books are magic. Jordan Kurella clearly knows which is which. -Polly Schattel, author of The Occultists and Shadowdays
Traveling from werewolf laden France to a generation ship lost among the stars, this debut collection is a dark journey beyond space and time, picking up where grace left off. Following themes of found family, untraditional relationships, and the power of love beyond all, the twelve stories are threaded together like a fever dream.
A monstrous collection filled with mermaids, scorpion people, living ships, and fairies, Kurella wants us not to be afraid of what lurks in the shadow of our imagination. His stories have been described as threading the line between bleakness and hope, because he knows that life and living it is difficult, but that without hope, there's no story at all.
