Weird and whimsical. I loved the concept of taking well-known figures from history and imagining the what ifs - what if you could slip through the cracks of time and bend reality?
Some of the stories were fairytale-like, others more speculative sci-fi. As with any collection of short stories, some were better than others. It was fun trying to unravel the allegories and symbolism of the tales, but there one or two where I was just confused and wished they could have been developed a bit more.
Overall, I enjoyed this. It was fresh and playful, with an interesting range of characters and settings.

I was impressed by the range of Ahmad's imagination in these short stories that play intentionally fast and loose with realist history. The first story of an Anne Boleyn who keeps coming back to life after Henry VIII's increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of her was by far my favourite - funny, a bit gross, and very knowing, it picks up on modern feminist takes on this particular marriage and the gendered power dynamics of the Henrician court more broadly.

The other stories take a similar iconoclastic view of history: Genghis Khan and an army of werewolves (there was a distinct Angela Carter edge here); Lizzie Borden, Jeanne D'Arc, a Julius Caesar confronted by a very modern woman in Gaul!

Reading history through a modern, feminist, sometimes Gothic or fairy-tale lens gives all these stories and interest though not all of them follow through. Overall, though, an imaginative and creative collection, perhaps closer to 3.5 stars for the unevenness.