Salute Your Shorts: The Ties That Bind by Rachel Hawkins

Salute Your Shorts is a weekly (ish) meme hosted here at Bunbury in the Stacks highlighting and reviewing short stories and novellas. Everyone is welcome to join at any point, just grab the pic above and shoot me a link in the comments so that I can include your post in a roundup.

Title: The Ties That Bind
Author: Rachel Hawkins [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing: Stand alone short set in the Hex Hall universe.
Genre: Historical, Paranormal
Published: October 28th, 2010
Format: Blog post = free and easy!
Source: These Dark Things

So...as YA readers, I'm guessing that you've probably heard of a couple of authors named Myra McEntire and Victoria Schwab that debuted in 2011 with a couple of books called Hourglass and The Near Witch.  But did you know that these two lovely ladies hosted a short story blog together?  It's called These Dark Things and was used by Myra and Victoria to challenge one another to write short stories adhering to a monthly theme.  Now, the blog's been hearing crickets since late 2010 when these ladies got busy gearing up for their debuts, but that just means it's easy to read through all of their stories!  Today, in honor of Spell Bound, the third and final Hex Hall book by Rachel Hawkins releasing, I'd like to highlight her guest post story on this blog.

The Ties That Bind is historical fiction, where Rachel Hawkins put her own twist on the Bloody Bender Family that ran The Devil's Inn from 1871-1873.  Basically, this was a family from Germany who just showed up in Kansas and started killing people, complete with creepy symbols and spiritualism.  By the time people figured out what was going on and went after them, the Benders were gone, and were never caught or seen again.  You can read the history behind this story here, and Rachel talks about it on her own blog here.

The Ties That Bind takes place in a world with the same rules as the Hex Hall universe, so it's a great place to start if you're debating whether or not that series is for you!  Of course, I feel it's my duty to point out that Hex Hall is funny and there is kissing, despite the fact that there is none of either in this short.  The Ties That Bind is totally creepy, and wonderful because it's based on a true story!  It's probably the longest 'short' on These Dark Things, but it's only about 2,000 words, which is shorter than some book reviews.  Check it out!