Dark Crescent, by Lyndsey Croal
5 Jun 2025The Book
Synopsis:
An omen of spirits dance across the sky. A lonely woman befriends a sea witch as the world ends. The last whale in the world travels north in search of hope. A grandmother seeks revenge on the sea monster that took her family.
DARK CRESCENT is a collection of seasonal tales inspired by Scottish folklore, landscapes, superstitions, and omens. In this book, readers will find reinterpretations of common folklore creatures and phenomenon, like the Kelpie, Selkie, and Will-o'-the-Wisps, as well as lesser known, such as the Sea Mither, Ceasg, Marool, Sluagh, Ghillie Dhu, Nuckelavee, Baobhan Sith, and The Frittening, all with dark and strange lore around them.
Moving through the seasons, from a darker Autumn and Winter to a more optimistic Summer, the often-interconnected stories cover a wide range of genres, including gothic, weird horror, speculative, dark fantasy, and solarpunk. Many of the tales are also inspired by nature, climate, and the environment, with feminist and eco themes throughout.
My Review
Dark Crescent is a inspired by Scottish folklore short story collection (22 shorts and a novella), written by Lyndsey Croal and published by Luna Press Publishing. A collection articulated around the seasons, which blends genres to play and twist many Scottish myths, all accompanied with a poignant prose that enhances the original concept she's building over.
It is always tricky to write a review on a short story collection, especially when it's so thematically varied as this one; but even in those that are more in the flash fiction style, you can feel a certain grimness mixed with a bit of hope (the collection leans more into horror than I expected, a glad surprise). The use of seasons helps to give a sense of order to the stories, while also acting as a second layer that adds inventiveness to these stories.
Without a particular order, I would like to highlight a few of the stories that were my favourites: The Fiddler and The Muse, an excellent take on inspiration with a darker twist that I absolutely loved; The Wulver's Gift, a tale on trust and that might remember to witch hunt times; and Woman of Ravens, another of the darker ones, but which brings a sense of justice and hope in the end.
This collection of stories is deliciously eerie, showing an impressive ability to adapt to the genre and the length by Croal's side; Dark Crescent is simply excellent, a well-rounded collection perfect if you are curious to learn more about Scottish folklore!
The Author/s
Lyndsey Croal
Lyndsey is an Edinburgh-based author of strange and speculative fiction. She is a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant Recipient, and former Hawthornden Fellow. Her short fiction and essays have been published in over eighty magazines and anthologies, and have placed or been shortlisted in several competitions including with Mslexia, British Fantasy Society, Apex Magazine, the Cymera Fest Prize for Speculative Fiction, Escape Pod, and Fractured Lit. Her debut two-part audio drama ‘Daughter of Fire and Water’ was released in 2021 with the Alternative Stories and Fake Realities podcast and was a BFA-finalist for Best Audio in 2022. Her novelette ‘Have You Decided on Your Question’ was published by Shortwave Publishing in 2023 and she has two short story collections forthcoming – LIMELIGHT from Shortwave Publishing in 2024 and DARK Crescent from Luna Press Publishing in 2025. She has also edited a number of projects including ‘Ghostlore: An Audio Fiction Anthology’ and Shoreline of Infinity Magazine’s Climate Change Special.
In 2019, she co-founded Edinburgh Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers and feels fortunate to have such an active literary scene on her doorstep. She is also a full member of SFWA.
Her writing is influenced by her professional background in climate and nature policy as well as her experience growing up in remote places.