While well written, all have a twist towards a bad or sad ending. ( )

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner mentions The Doll a short story by Daphne du Maurier that was too scandalous to be published. Well, I had to search it out and found this anthology. According to Bloomsbury Girls, The Doll is about a woman who finds a doll that fulfills all her sexual needs. (If you want to read just this story it's here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/30/the-doll-daphne-du-maurier). Pretty risque for the 1920s, though that was a time of sexual freedom. Maybe taken alone, this is what it's about, but as it is combined with the rest of the stories (and it's seldom I like almost every short story in an anthology as I did in this one) it seems to me to be about a woman who is smart enough not to get sucked in by a man's romantic notions so she creates her own fantasy that satisfies her more. I didn't see anything particularly sexual in it, but it's possible these things have to be spelled out for me. The stories are about obsessive love, waning love, the love of the chase, and the boredom of the relationship. They're also about men and women who use and are used by each other. They don't seem to have been written by a woman who had a very favorable view of marriage. ( )

''There was only the island. Beyond it lay the ghostly, the intangible; the truth was in the seared rock, in the touch of the soil, in the sound of the waves breaking against the cliffs.''

East Wind: The symbolism of the East Wind is used to perfection in the story of a remote community of islanders who are happily oblivious of the world ''out there''. But strangers arrive with the East Wind and the repercussions will be devastating...

''It's easy enough to laugh, who wouldn't crack their sides and split their tongues with laughing. Let's laugh till the blood runs from our eyes - there's fun, if you like. No, it's the emptiness that hurts, the breaking up of everything inside me.''

The Doll: A man falls in love with an alluring violinist, a strange, haunting woman with a secret darker than anything you can imagine. An outstanding, tragic story...

And Now to God the Father: A narcissistic, despicable priest who dares to use the name of Jesus to justify his absolute lack of decency finds himself stained with the blood of the innocents.

''There must be no shadows between us, no quiet corners in our hearts.''

A Difference in Temperament: A husband and a wife who have forgotten how to communicate, poisoning their lives with the temperament.

Frustration: Ah! The torture of young, newly-married couples with no means to provide for themselves and a wonderous string of bad luck...

Piccadilly: A pathetic woman tries to find all the proper excuses to justify her desperate desire for easy money. But the only one responsible for her failure is her own weak and disgusting self and no one else.

Tame Cat: A caricature of a mother sees her daughter as a rival for the affections of a heinous gold-digger.

Mazie: Poverty and loneliness become more acute in a glittering, unforgiving metropolis like London.

Nothing Hurts for Long: A woman prepares for the return of her husband but her efforts don't seem to be enough to satisfy a ignorant, heartless brute from Berlin.

Week - End: A silly young couple discovers that ''love'' about cute names and week- end getaways.

The Happy Valley: A haunting story in which reality and visions, premonitions and vagueness form a peculiar dance.

And His Letters Grew Colder: The letters of a capital arsehole to a woman who was desperate enough to fall for his lies were almost painful to read...

The Limpet: ''What I want to know is this: where have I gone wrong in life? Why is that no matter how kind I am to people, how truly generous, it never seems to pay dividends?''

''Don't forget your coat, there's a bitter east wind.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ ( )

I don't know what happened this time. The first time through I could not get through this collection. My mind was wandering, I couldn't even get through the sentences. I just took it off my reading shelf and ignored it for more than a year. This time though, I flew this collection. Daphne du Maurier is able to tap into the deepest/darkest parts of people and is able to wrap it up in just a few pages. I thought all of these stories were great.

East Wind (4.5 stars)-This story is just giving you a little taste of the stories you are going to read in this collection. Reading about a remote island where the inhabitants find themselves acting out once a wind blows a boat with foreign sailors ashore is great. The ending shocked me. It was so sudden that I had to re-read it to make sure that I read it properly. And in typical du Maurier fashion there is definitely dark humor in play at the ending when as a reader you realize that the character of Guthrie didn't need to do what he did.

The Doll (5 stars)-Wow. First of all, I hate dolls. They freak me out, and I don't like the glass eyes following you around. This story about an unknown narrator who leaves a letter found by someone in which you can see the narrator's increasing madness when it comes to a woman he is obsessed/loves who is in turns focused on a doll.

And Now to God The Father (4.5 stars)-The character of Reverend James Hollaway can go kick rocks. Hard. Seriously though, I loved how you get to see the inner workings of this supposed religious man.

A Difference in Temperament (5 stars)-This one made me laugh. Mostly because you get to see how a couple acts and thinks and you realize everything would be solved if they actually spoke up without being passive aggressive to one another. This one had a dark humor flavor to it as well. Not as much as East Wind though.

Frustration (5 stars)- Was hilarious from beginning to end. This and A Difference in Temperament were more let's laugh at how human beings act and how all of their plans go up in smoke. The Doll was more let's be afraid of ever interacting with other people again.

Piccadilly (4 stars)- This one was not as great as the other stories. And considering I loved the other ones that's not a real complaint. It just stuck out a lot more compared to the other stories. This got the collection back to a "darker" sentiment.

Tame Cat (5 stars)-Heartbreaking. Seriously. You will feel for the young girl called "Baby" by her "Uncle" John in this one. Being proud to return home to be with her mother and show her how she has changed. She gets her eyes opened in more ways than one.

Mazie (4 stars)-Once again this one was not as great as the other stories. I was not as engaged with this one. It probably was because Tame Cat was so good and I wished that one had gone on a bit longer.

Nothing Hurts for Long (5 stars)-A woman's awakening to what state her marriage is really in after witnessing the implosion of her friend's marriage. Once again there was a sly dark humor running through this one. You knew that the main character was going to get a pie in her face by the end, and du Maurier did not disappoint.

Week-End (5 stars)-Funny (which makes me kind of messed up by the way) from beginning to end. Watch young love die. Seriously though, it did make me laugh. And notice how the title of this story is labeled.

The Happy Valley (5 stars)-I dithered about this one a bit, but honestly it was kind of all over the place until the very end. But, it needed to be since you could feel the confusion of the main character until the final reveal which I thought was brilliantly done. I actually got a shiver up my spine when I got to a certain part and the ending.

As His Letters Grew Colder (5 stars)-The end of an affair. Seriously. It was wonderful to read from beginning to end. It reminded me of Sex and the City when (spoilers)
Carrie and Big begin their affair and you see how hot and passionate it was and how it went to indifference over time in a 1 minute montage.

The Limpet (4.5 stars)-Not the strongest to end on in this collection. It was still great though. Reading about a woman's constant complaints about her life though without her even realizing what a schemer she really is and also how she is at turns naive. ( )

The Doll: The Lost Short Stories
by Daphne du Maurier
2011
Harper

You can not beat Daphne du Maurier, in my opinion. She has been a favorite author of mine for years.
This is a collection of 13 stories that were originally published during the 1930ś in periodicals, and some have never been printed until now. These stories of obsession, possession, jealousy were really good. My favorites were:
The Doll
A Difference in Temperment
Piccadilly
The Happy Valley (the best one, IMHO)
The Limpet ( )