A new review of the anthology Myth-Understandings featuring Kim's short story "Heart Song" has been posted over at The Fix:

"I’m not familiar with the mythological background of “Heart Song” by Kim Lakin-Smith, but it definitely reads like a fairy tale. A jilted lover, Juho, sits on the edge of an old well, pouring out his heartache (and hurt pride) in music as he plays his kantele. With his eyes closed, he doesn’t see that the girl who joins him climbed out of the well, nor does he apparently have the good sense to realize she’s not just an ordinary peasant girl. Pirho is a pitiful creature, who once accidentally dropped a spindle into the well, and threw herself in after it for fear of her mother’s retaliation. Now she lives in Vanaheim, a limbo world somewhere between life and death, and she has traded her heart to Mother Reija in exchange for the lost spindle. Mother Reija has sent her up to the surface world to bring back the essence of Juho’s music.

This is a harsh world, where a young girl would drown herself rather than face the loss of a spindle. Juho may simply be a product of his environment. Still, if Juho’s arrogance and gratuitous cruelty are indicative of his usual behavior, then it’s no wonder the fair Eeva dumped him. I feel he richly deserved everything that happened to him; in fact he got off easy."
by Jan Clark

Myth-Understandings can be purchased from Amazon for just £9.99