An Evil Awakening... Plus - 1

2-Tales from the first-half of the last century feature in this volume of fantasy female-led fiction. First up is Estelle Marchant's "An Evil Awakening" as we are taken back to 1922 where, for one wife, a life of being second best is about to end. This after her husband returns from a business trip to the East for the company he owns with an illness that has left him with the strength of a child while leaving his faculties intact.
Much good they will do him as his wife takes over the reins of both household and company. The hapless husband's situation not improved when his wife takes on a manipulative Polish woman to help with him and she soon makes herself domestically indispensable a figure of authority to the demoted husband as his regression deepens. And looks likely to become far worse! Next up is Maurice Huysman's "A Cage for Hercules", and his tale, set in the 1930's describing a successful London businessman who for the first time in his life believes he knows exactly what he wants.
His desire being to retire to the gentle English countryside and indulge his passion for reading and solitude. At least that is what he believes his desire to be. Until, that is, he meets the devoted niece of a widowed aunt, both of whom are soon to be his neighbours and see past his defences immediately to discern just what it will take for the newcomer to their tiny community to be finally happy.
A missing and unsuspected need that, they feel, will be best expressed in their home. And in their service! Believable and retro female-led fantasy fiction for those readers who prefer to use the darker sides of their imaginations with the help of character-driven plotlines.