REVIEW: “Like a Bell Through the Night” by Kayla Bashe

Review of Kayla Bashe, “Like a Bell Through the Night”, Luna Station Quarterly 29 (2017): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Jaffa Volkovitch like many other women had a childhood penfriend. Unlike many other women, Jaffa’s penfriend was a fairy, Rihannon; and unlike many other woman, Jaffa herself was a werewolf. Now Jaffa’s grown up, and Rihannon’s letter catches her by surprise: I’m coming. Help. But what kind of help can a fairy need? And what kind of help can Jaffa offer?

The story itself was fun enough, but I found the presentation/narration of it confusing; it started off in 3rd person, from Jaffa’s point of view, but scattered throughout were 1st person portions, which I never quite figured out who they were, no matter how many times I went back and re-read it. At first I thought they were actually Jaffa’s internal thoughts, but there was never anything that marked them off as such; however, after the third or fourth try, I suddenly realised that the POV had switched to Rihannon, which made me think then that maybe they were her internal thoughts. In the end, I felt the narrative issues in the beginning of the story preventing me from fully enjoying the plot, sadly, even once we got past the issues.