Review: Limelight and Other Stories by Lyndsey Croal

Limelight is a collection of over twenty high-concept dark science fiction tales from near and far futures.

The title novelette—about a young woman brought back from near death by experimental tech, only to find her parents had her altered before she woke—anchors this collection which features five new exclusive stories alongside popular past works, including:

– “Hush, Little Sister” (originally published in OBSOLESCENCE [Shortwave Publishing])

– “Patchwork Girls” (originally published in Dark Matter magazine)

– “The Medium’s Assistant”, a runner-up in the British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition (originally published in BFS Horizons #16 [British Fantasy Society])

– “To Replace a Broken Heart” (originally published in Seize the Press magazine)

– “Rent-A-Baby” (originally published in Thank You for Joining the Algorithm [Tenebrous Press])

Lyndsey’s work explores the bright potential and the dark reality of our near and far futures through the lenses of connection and loneliness, love and heartbreak, autonomy and exploitation, desire and greed, wonder and despair. If you’ve ever imagined alternate futures, craved answers to the mysteries of the universe, or feared what might be lurking just beyond our reach, then you need this collection.

Limelight and Other Stories takes relatively simple “what if” questions and wrings everything out of them. From android actresses destined for death, to down-on-their-luck spaceship crews, it’s a collection that will both frighten and inspire.

For my first complete read of 2026, I chose Limelight and Other Stories, a fantastic little collection of stories. The stories in here are largely science fiction, with some elements of paranormality or horror occasionally. They are broken into two parts: a near-future, and far-future tales.

Part one, Near, was an absolute highlight for me. “Patchwork Girls” sets the tone, and tells a story of an android woman who is made to be the actress tragically killed so that the male lead can get that extra burst of motivation and determination to claim victory in the final act of their story. Each time she is killed on film, she is resurrected and sent back out to do it again, each death different in how they occur but each the same in the way they all serve to motivate the human male actor’s character. It’s a brutal story with a tragic but kind of empowering finale.

The titular story, “Limelight,” is perhaps my favorite of the collection. Like so many of these near-future stories it asks “what if you could resurrect dead loved ones?” It offers some powerful commentary about how we might treat the returned, especially when only those who can afford resurrection receive it, and the powerful emotions felt by the parents who make the call to bring back their daughter after a terrible accident.

Part two, Far, offers a few stand-outs as well. I really enjoyed “Something in the Air” and “Sleep Well, My Prince.” They both dig into a crew on a spaceship, their unique relationships, and being forced to make incredibly hard decisions. However, this story also contains some incredibly short stories like “Unfurl” which are interesting but end before I found myself getting attached to anything in them. “Crosswords and Coffee” was neat as well, but echoed an earlier story in the collection a bit too closely, and left me feeling as though I’d already read it once before.

I recommend Limelight and Other Stories. Not every story landed quite as well as I would have liked—part two feels overall weaker than part one—but there are still some incredible stories here. “Patchwork Girls,” “Hush, Little Sister,”  “Limelight,” “Something in the Air,” and “Sleep Well, My Prince” each punch with the weight of a full novel. By which I mean that Croal brings us into the story with effortless grace, and hits us with a brilliant and often gut-wrenching ending.

There are twenty-two stories in Limelight and Other Stories. You’re bound to find a few that will break your heart (in a good way).