Unfettered

Unfettered is a story collection brimming with unfettered imagination. A captain of a ship ferries dead souls from a natural disaster to the Afterlife, but a living passenger throws a wrinkle into his job. A faerie travels to the human realm where she tries to restore a dragon to health, encounters a healer, and embraces her own abilities. A retired woman with an unfaithful husband discovers a unique name in the phonebook, leading to her witnessing a crime, and in the process, finding purpose again. A woman in a wheelchair speculates about the people in her neighbourhood. When she starts using a drone to spy on one particular neighbour, all expectations are upended. And in the title story, a girl freely roams the streets at night. On All Hallows Eve, when the veil between worlds is thin, she is faced with a choice.

This is a book of the fantastical and mysterious. Voyeurism and deception, adventure and good old-fashioned fun abound. Whether writing about another world, children, or faeries, Irene Kidd-McCuaig never loses sight of her main goal-escapism. But beyond entertainment, almost all the stories in Unfettered present female protagonists coming to terms with the challenging or quirky circumstances they find themselves in.