Miss Stake, the Veronica Benoit series - dud

This is the intro to a paranormal series set in the swamplands of Louisana.  The main character is introduced to the paranormal world around her.

The part of writing that is "stringing words together to make sentences & paragraphs" was good - the author has a good voice.  But that's about all I can say about it.

World building failed - this is the hardest part of any fantasy or sci fi short story, and it failed hard here.  Concepts are introduced with little to no explanation. This is especially apparent when the main character finds out she's a swamp witch.   Her reaction is "I am? Oh" i.e. not much of a reaction at all.  This is as much a problem of character building as well.

Character building - like above, several characters are thrown at you, with little explanation of relationships.

But the worst part is the chemistry - the author takes the lazy way out with the "We are destined to be together!"  shortcut to the relationship.  

The Fat Cat, by Edie Ramer - winner

This is how to do a short fantasy/sf story.   The world is just around the corner from ours, so no unusual concepts, just some demonstrations of how things are different.  We have the main character, a cat who can talk to only her, an evil warlock, and a damsel in distress.  The execution of the denoument is a little weak, but otherwise this is a solid story.

I will have to check out more of Edie Ramer's works