REVIEW: “Small Prayers for the God of Sow Thistle Hill” by Kate Francia

Review of Kate Francia, “Small Prayers for the God of Sow Thistle Hill,” Flash Fiction Online 147 (December 2025): 26-28 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The theme of this story felt eerily similar to that of Matt Dovey’s in the same issue, but instead of feeling repetitious, it felt like the two stories reinforced and supported each other. The lesson in both of them — told here in a sweet, sorrowful, almost wistful way — is one that often needs to be said over and over and over again before people will listen, so I’m pleased that FFO’s editors opted for including both of these.

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REVIEW: “The Visitor” by Frances Koziar

Review of Frances Koziar, “The Visitor,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 337-361 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Once I got past the rather info-dump-y first few pages, this story really drew me in. I’m a sucker for university scholars off doing research, no matter what arcane subject, and I enjoyed the easy naturalness that lay between Annaz, the scholar, and Kiava, the local who became his guide. For a comparatively long story, the pages slipped away quickly beneath my eyes, especially as I reached the excessively sweet and excessively satisfying resolution.

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REVIEW: “A Spell for Summer” by Robin Cassini

Review of Robin Cassini, “A Spell for Summer,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 323-334 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It’s not often I come across a story that really needed another hard pass of editing before it is released into the wild, but alas, this was one: The non-systematic switching between past and present tense really nagged at me and made it difficult to get properly stuck into the story.

I’m not sure, however, how easy I would’ve found that, even without the issues: It’s a story of a young girl who’s lost her heart to a boy who is a bit of a player, and maybe it’s just that it’s been a long time since I was a teenager, but these kinds of stories aren’t really for me.

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REVIEW: “Women of Nowhere” by Lyra Bird

Review of Lyra Bird, “Women of Nowhere,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 171-184 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

100% absolutely and utterly gripping — that’s what this story was. It has one of the most distinctive narrative voices that I’ve come across in a very long time, drawing me straight in so that by the third sentence I was enthralled, not so much by the story as I was by wondering what slant path Bird would take me down next.

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REVIEW: “To the Moon, Not Back” by Emma Francois

Review of Emma Francois, “To the Moon, Not Back,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 105-126 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a beautifully heart-wrenching story of deep love and betrayal. I felt sympathy for Beatrix, the narrator, every step of the way, even when I could tell, right from the start, that The Boy was never going to be The One for her. Didn’t make her pain any less real, didn’t make it hurt any less, didn’t make her anger any less righteous, or her desire for revenge any less justified.

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REVIEW: “For Love and Country” by Yelena Crane

Review of Yelena Crane, “For Love and Country,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 145-159 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This is fundamentally a story about being an immigrant in a dystopia, and as such it was a tough story to read (I’m an immigrant myself, but the so-called “good kind” which makes where I live only slightly less dystopian than it is for my fellow immigrants who are the “wrong kind”), but just as Eva snatches at a chance of hope, of asylum, so too I found my own hope in the story, hope that everything would turn out all right, hope that Eva would get her happy ending, hope that the author wouldn’t betray us readers by pulling the rug out from under us at the last moment, growing tentatively as I read. The balm of having the hope fulfilled was something I needed today, an otherwise tough day.

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REVIEW: “Dislocated” by Stephen Granade

Review of Stephen Granade, “Dislocated,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 23-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There was a very hopeful thread in this story, a thread entwined about the fact that even in the depths of awfulness humanity still knows how to band together in the form of support groups — whether it’s groups like AA in the real world or Nicola’s teleportation sickness support ground in Granade’s story — which left me feeling quite comforted, actually, considering how objectively depressing the story was. (The extremely delightful ending didn’t hurt, that’s for sure.)

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