Charles de Lint

Muse and Reverie is an all-new collection of short fiction in Charles de Lint’s “Newford” universe—the fifth such collection since 1993, and the first since 2002. Previous collections are Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, the World Fantasy Award-winning Memory and Dream, and Tapping the Dream Tree. The city of Newford could be any city in North America, bursting with music, commerce, art, love and hate, and of course magic. Magic in the sidewalk cracks, myth at the foundations of its great buildings, enchantment in the spaces between its people. In this new collection, de Lint explores that magic and those spaces, shedding new light on the people and places that readers of novels like Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and The Mystery of Grace have come to love.

Muse and Reverie

Sarah Sammis

I started reading Charles de Lint because he writes "Books to Look For" the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Since he lives in Canada and therefore qualifies for the Canada Reads challenge and the 42 Challenge I've been reading through my library's collection of his books. I knew Muse and Reverie was his new book having seen it reviewed on the book blogs I read.

Muse and Reverie is a collection of his urban fantasy short stories. Some are reprints and some are new. I didn't take notes as to which are which or what percentage of each are included. I mostly just opened the book and started reading until I was done.

All of the stories take place in or near Newford. I haven't read any of his Newford novels but the first story in the collection felt like a natural sequel to The Wild Wood in that both cover painting among fairies in the woods.
The stories included are:

 * Somewhere In My Mind There Is a Painting Box
 * Refinerytown
 * A Crow Girls Christmas--with MaryAnn Harris
 * Dark Eyes, Faith and Devotion
 * Riding Shotgun
 * Sweet Forget-Me-Not
 * That Was Radio Clash
 * The Butter Spirit's Tithe
 * Da Slockit Light
 * The Hour Before Dawn
 * Newford Spook Squad
 * In Sight
 * The World in a Box

Muse and Reverie

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