With this follow-up to her 2008 collection of poems, Victorian Days and Punk Rock Nights, Ladyaslan takes it to the next level. As with her first compilation, most of the poems and stories are up to the readers’ interpretation. Some of the metaphors are clear, some will have you guessing. They run the gamut of emotions from happiness to anger to frustration. Also, as with her first book, there are a few non-poetic entries. A couple of the notable ones are “Death of Beauty” and “Gran and the Fairy Princess.” The former is a first-person narrative of visitor to a strange city one would arrive at in the afterlife, and the latter, a touching account of when the author’s grandmother introduced her to a mythical being, when she was a small child.

On the humorous side, there are innuendos about the author’s casual relationship with recreational drugs, and a vivid memoir of summer night from the late 1980s with a group of friends, that includes one the author refers to as “Tiffany Hore” (I can’t believe that is/was her real name, because it would make survival in the US public school system impossible), who makes a couple of other appearances within the pages. Rounding out this read are a music review, an article on the Internet Asylum Radio Show (which the author is a part of), and a poem about plain ol’ sex ….and if you’re fortunate enough to get a signed copy from Ladyaslan, it will smell like Turquatic perfume by MAC, which is her signature scent.