Alma Boykin’s fifth book in her Familiar Tales series, Clearly Familiar, fills out the series’ characters and the world they live in.

Wandering wolverines, catfish in the sky, owls that can’t fly straight… Welcome back to the Familiar world, where magic and the mundane coexist (and collide).

These short stories introduce some new characters and revisit familiar (and Familiar) ones, including Morgana and Smiley Lorraine, Dr. William Lewis and Blackwell, and Shoshana Langtree. Sorcerers gone mad, heavy weather, and the thin line between insanity and magic, all standard fare in this Familiar place and time.

All of these short stories are engaging and entertaining. However, the story dealing with Shoshona, an artist with a link to the supernatural, was my favorite.  We also learn how Morgana met Smiley, and meet more of the magical characters who inhabit this world.

You need to start at the beginning of this series in order to understand a lot of the links in the web that Ms. Boykin is weaving through this series. However, that’s not a bad thing.  Clearly Familiar is merely the next in a line of excellent collections that I hope stretches well into the future.