Prickly Pears is a short stories collection featuring some of Isabelle B.L’s best work, mostly published in literary magazines.   

Excerpt of “Cords”, by Isabelle B.L

Hands of a woman I can’t see thread black cords, in and out, pulls and ties. My feet enter a circle of jade and white lace. I’m a church bell. Ding-dong. He wants to see me.

My right arm slides down the mahogany rail. With each step, he adds an adjective. Breath-taking. Beautiful. Bewitching but I can only feel breathless.

• First published in Flashback Fiction in November 2021
• Nominated for Best Small Fictions 2021 and Best Microfiction 2021
• Published in the anthology Best Microfiction 2022

Featuring a painterly palette, a miniaturist’s eye for detail, and a watchmaker’s precision, Isabelle B.L’s short fiction sparkle and shine with a radiance all their own. In her sharply concretized fictional worlds, Isabelle B.L’s characters navigate through landscapes and brush across objects imbued with a vitality and presence that brings to mind a Vermeer painting or one of Giovanni Verga’s folksy short stories. At the same time, a dreamlike and often dissonant tone elevates her tales from the mere sum of their polished but mundane parts, an effect that resonates long after reading them.

Salvatore Difalco, author of Black Rabbit & Other Stories (Anvil); The Mountie At Niagara Falls & Other Brief Stories (Anvil); Mean Season (Mansfield), and Minotaur (Truth Serum Press)