Imago and Other Transformations

Each of the 21 chilling horror shorts in Ruppert’s debut collection (after the novella Sisters in Arms) unfurls like the creeping tendrils of a slime mold. Ruppert is a master of atmosphere, drawing readers into recognizable worlds so smoothly, deeply, and inexorably that it’s impossible to tell exactly when the comfortable reality she presents morphs into something strange, terrifying, and terrible: what is the mind playing tricks, and what is a truth too awful to believe? This skill particularly shines in longer works like “Pretty in the Dark,” wherein a lakeside lodge’s spooky campfire tales come back to haunt a lifelong camper, and “Serpentine,” about a young Venezuelan woman devoted to the mythical witch-queen Yara. The Gothic “The Grave of Angels” is a particular standout, following a woman compelled by family tradition to return to her grim and lonely ancestral home to die. Shorter stories, including “Antinomia” and “Afterimage,” are less successful, offering tantalizing glimpses of the uncanny but without the space to achieve the payoff they deserve. Still, readers will find this book hard to put down—because it won’t let them go. (Apr.)