The Sea Gives Up the Dead: Stories - Molly Olguín - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Molly Olguín

GENRE: Short Story Collection.

PUBLICATION DATE: April 29, 2025

RATING: 3.2 stars.

In a Nutshell: A short story collection interspersing fantasy and horror into a mesmerising combo. Precise writing, intriguing characters, compelling plots. Had all the endings worked for me, this would have ended up as one of my favourites of the year. Regardless, the imaginative and distinct storylines still make this book a good option for short fiction lovers.

This collection of twelve stories doesn’t have any author’s note to introduce the binding theme to us. However, the blurb has this interesting one-liner to offer: ‘a collection of stories sprinkled into the soil of fairy tale, left to take root and grow wild there.’ How poetic is that!

The dominant genre is fantasy-horror, but many stories also feel literary. Each of the tales has a fresh storyline, generating no feelings of déjà vu or familiarity. The narratives are distinct in plot, characters as well as emotions. The characters are especially memorable, as their flawed behaviour and their conundrums add much value to the basic plot.

As the title indicates, death has a strong role to play in this collection. Whether it is the literal death of the main character or the figurative death of a marriage, macabre thoughts about dying or plans of killing someone, death makes an appearance in every story, making this book morbidly fascinating. Do note that there are shades of horror to many stories, and the death include those of children and animals as well.

Though some of the stories have unreal elements such as magical occurrences or fantastical creatures like dragons or mermaids, the overall book still feels rooted in reality. And this is mainly because of the depiction of human emotions in every single tale. Spanning a wide array of feelings ranging from love to hatred, frustration to longing, bravery to cowardice, the collection offers an amazing insight into the human mind and its complicated working.

The writing is quite powerful. As the stories are character-oriented, there is a lot of introspection in the content. But this doesn’t come at the cost of the descriptive add-ons. It is very easy to visualise every scene, even when the visual is bizarre. Further, the pacing is also quite fast, a rarity for such a writing approach.

The main reason why my rating couldn’t touch greater heights was the endings. A few of the stories ended at an apt point, but many endings didn’t work for me. They weren’t abrupt as such, but they weren’t satisfying either, leaving me longing for more clarity or closure.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the twelve stories, two reached/crossed four stars. Most of the rest earned 3.5 stars, and at least half of these would have earned more stars had they offered me a satisfactory finale. The two best stories of the book for me were:

⚰️ Seven Deaths: A wildly crazy story that had me hooked from start to finish. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

⚰️ Captain America's Missing Fingers: When a little girl realises that the world behaves differently with little boys. Sad, really sad. Would have earned a higher rating with a better ending. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Overall, though the endings somewhat sullied my experience, I still liked this collection for its innovative plotlines and diverse characters. I find it tough to accept that this is a debut work. The author’s pen holds much promise, and I’d love to read more of her works in future.

Recommended to short story fans who enjoy fantasy-horror, are comfortable with a literary writing style and don’t need solid endings.

3.2 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.

My thanks to Red Hen Press for providing the DRC of “The Sea Gives Up the Dead” via NetGalley & Edelweiss+. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.