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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Christopher FowlerGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title= Bryant and May - London's GloryThe Accidentals|rating= 4.5|genre= CrimeShort Stories|summary=In This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the depths word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of the last [[Bryant nature and May – The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler|B&M review I wrote]] I said '' Of course, it's unbelievable, farcicalhuman relationships. But then you don't come to a Bryant Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and May story for realism. You come for absurdity.'' Naturallyprecisely, I stand her stories structured by a wisdom that comment. Fowler has concocted his characters and has no shame in shunting them up and down appears to want to teach us something about the time-line of British history as he sees fitworld.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857523457</amazonuk>1804271470

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithMariana Enriquez|title=Chance Developments: Unexpected Love StoriesA Sunny Place for Shady People

|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=SometimesMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, if I'm in a cafe achieving this uncanny familiarity by myself, I like to watch the people around me and imagine stories about their lives. Just a single sentence, overheard, can lead to wonderous tales basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of mystery and intrigue whilst I sip my cappuccino! So I was delighted disused refrigerators due to sit down to read the latest offering from AMSan urban planning mishap, not only because he wrote it, but because he wrote it after looking at 5 different black an overcrowded homeless shelter and white photographs, and then imagining the stories behind thema crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. Who The circumstances of her characters are all so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these people, and what are their stories? Each story is unique, and yet they all have one abiding link...lovespaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973295</amazonuk>1803511230

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joannah YacoubFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=When Mr Putin Stole My Painting: Ten Short StoriesWhite Nights|rating=3.5

|summary=Put yourself, if necessaryAs always in Dostoyevsky, in the mind of someone wanting to publish their first collection of short storiescharacter work is sublime. What do you choose as the contents – besides just saying the best available? Do you try and find One is never left wondering what a theme, character is thinking or connecting happenstance or style, to pin them together? Are they based on you now, someone else somewhen else, or all the diverse people feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and places you have once met? Joannah Yacoub seems to have gone for the lattertemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373971</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eoin Colfer (editor)AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Once Upon a PlaceAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers Science Fiction|summary=You know ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the bit shape of the blurb on every things to come.''Artemis Fowl' I' book, where Eoin Colfer had ve heard it said about how that 'technology' is what happens after you pronounce his name? That wasn't the intention of an up-and-coming author to be recognisable; rather, it was pridere eighteen. Pride in the difference of itWell, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of the Irishness of ittechnology in my lifetime. Ireland, it seems I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me, is more full than usual of people, things and ideas, and places but I'm left with the feeling that are different by dint it's all getting away from me. Some of their singular nationality – and so many deserve to have pride attached to themit is - frankly - quite frightening. The places might not be the famous onesOf course, but they can be I could research the source of pride, possibilities and of stories, which is where this compilation of short works for the young comes in, with probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the authors invited to select their chosen place latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and write about itwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191041137X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie HannahB0CDZRGT1M|title=The Visitors BookSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=34.5|genre=ParanormalShort Stories|summary= Sophie Hannah's The Visitors Book 'Got a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short anthology .'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of modern stories with a supernatural twist. There fully rounded little story if that story is not a hammy gothic turret told in sight as her characters experience their mundane, day-fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to-day, 21st century business -- draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a childrenbook of them? I don's birthday party, t know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a visit to a boyfriendfixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, neck pain, the school run. Now, ghost stories based on ordinary people leading ordinary lives can be very unsettling indeed, making overly imaginative readers look over their shoulder at the bus stop, or giving them goosebumps author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for no apparent reasona three hundred word limit. So I was curious to see what Sophie Hannah, That's about a writer I much admire, would make of this particular materialsingle page in your average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745525</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marina WarnerRachel Harrison|title=Fly Away HomeBad Dolls|rating=34

|summary=How would you subvert It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a fairy tale? You know enough couple of them and enough about them to do itmisspent teen years reading Stephen King, so think on it. Would you give borrowing the books from a mermaid a smartphone? Would you pepper them boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with pop stars, and perhaps let them be witness to the Schadenfreude caused by a cave point thatI couldn's sacred to native Canadians? t shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! Would youIt doesn't have those jump scares, in the light of their characters usually being routine, interchangeable tropes, give them a closely-observed personality – as seen here in a teacherand I didn's interior thoughts when faced with a piece of East Anglian lore? t have to read it during daylight hours only! Would you take the exoticism But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the eastfact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and Egypt that at least in particularpart, and see it in the light of horrors arises from very normal situations such as a musical teacher on breakup, trying a zero-hours contract who ends up muttering new dieting app, going to himself, directing traffic in the middle of the road, or from the remove of an elderly man a hen party and a coping with ''swollen feet in orthopaedic sandals'' with a message from the past? Certainly these two are not the standard Arabian Nights-styled pieces…grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630381</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rose TremainB0CCCVRSGX|title= The American LoverStories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories |summary= Having never read a Rose Tremain book before, I was interested to start this collection This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I wasntook something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't disappointeddeserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and it quickly became clear why she has won so many literary awards for her workI think they give a general flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548445</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ursula K Le Guin1739593901|title= 22 Ideas About The Wind's Twelve Quarters Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and The Compass RoseStephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 45|genre= Science Fiction|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' I'll start by saying that I think the SF Masterworks series are pretty much always and without fail ve got a really interesting readcouple of confessions to make. I've bought quite m not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few from this publisher now stories and I find they will always pick interesting titles from then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction genre: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, making them what did I think of a great place to start if you are either just dipping your toe into book of twenty-two science fiction for the first time or if you're looking to build up your collectionshort stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320576X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Maeve BinchyB09XZMCDVF|title= A Few of the GirlsStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary= I was excited about reviewing ''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a brand stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…'' This collection of Maeve Binchy thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and I wasnstrange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't disappointedmean boring or uninteresting. As her widower states in the introduction, Binchy had an extraordinary talent for telling powerful Form and compassionate stories, tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and was a true storyteller with an amazing outputyou're never quite sure what's coming next. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409161412</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ann Cleeves (editor)1737030942|title=The Starlings and Other StoriesBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick

|genre=CrimeAnthologies|summary=Six authorsSometimes, known collectively as you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick'The Murder Squads ''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, and their six accomplices were given twelve photographs of the remote landscape of Pembrokeshire when I read his [[Cape Henry House by acclaimed photographer David Wilson and asked to come up with Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a short story inspired by rollicking tale of what they sawhappens when five young men find a base for their partying. Some of the stories will be more to your taste than othersRight now, I didn't want a full-length novel, as is only so I turned to be expected in such a varied this anthology, but none are weak of verse and if you enjoy crime short stories then this book could be a real treat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909823740</amazonuk> Bittick's writing has matured - and so have his characters. Well... most of them!

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Walter M Miller Jr1529418100|title= Dark Benediction|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= Walter M. Miller Jr is rightly placed among the science fiction giants H.G. Wells, Michael Moorcock, and Philip K. Dick in the Bruno''Masterworks'' series, a large selection of genre-defining writers and works at the centre of what is now such a popular s Challenge and diverse range of literatures, films, and television productions. Miller is considered one of the finest science fiction writers of the 1950s, and in ''Dark Benediction'', fourteen of this author's best short stories are brought together in one collection.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211948</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewOther Dordogne Tales|author= Elizabeth McCracken|title= ThunderstruckMartin Walker|rating= 54

|summary= I chose to review this collection 'm not usually a fan of short stories with no prior knowledge - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the authortemptation to read ''Bruno's work – often the best way Challenge'' was hard to do it, though resist and I am aware 'm rather glad that McCrackenI didn's work comes highly commendedt even try. After reading these stories For those new to the series, I can see why there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and I am already looking forward the background to reading more of her workwhy Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592975</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Pete BellotteB08NF79QXT|title= The Unround CircleCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating= 2.53|genre= Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary= As short story collections goThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, this is a fairly ambitious bundlethe Cherry Blossom Boutique, some 22 stories running to a total of nearly four hundred pagesfor just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. YouShe'll gather from s delighted and the fact that Itwo people she'm starting s brought with her to the statistics that I didnevent couldn't instantly fall in love with Bellotte's writingbe more pleased.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910533092</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mary Higgins Clark (editor)|title= Manhattan Mayhem – New Crime Stories Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from the Mystery Writers of America|rating= 5|genre= Crime|summary= I was unsure how to open this review. I heart ManhattanJessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, big timeCharles and their four-year-old daughter, Ava. I am always attracted to any work set in Manhattan, but I don’t want to pigeonhole this remarkable collection of stories into a slot that says Life would be perfect for Liberty if it wasn'only t for Manhattan lovers'. Far from it – it is one thing: she misses having a superb collection featuring the highest standards of both mystery writing and the form of short storyman in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474761X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ivan Vladislavic|title=101 Detectives|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=101 Detectives had me baffled. The book comprises of a collection of stories which explore multiple themes from the perspective of one person. The stories are as varied as the characters presenting the tale to you. This exquisitely written book leaves you asking many questions and pondering many ideas. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276568</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laurie R King and Leslie Klinger (editors)B08KKQ85FN|title=In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes CanonBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Well, that's one way 'If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to get a heck of Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a lot of attention pampered peacock about to your series be released into the company of short story collectionscarrion crows or, for sure – get the estate of the author you're respecting to take you more to court with the idea that the works cannot be published – the characters are so firmly established and entrenchedpoint, but established and entrenched as their property and therefore cannot be artistically reinterpreted, revived or otherwise returned about to at all until full discover the real world of bus timetables and final copyright statutes have expiredpaying his own gas bills. '' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? Never mind that the characters – one S Holmes We first met His Excellency and Dr JH Watson – hardly have parallels The Ambassador's Wife in how often they already have been mimicked. Never mind [[Sorting the fact that Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the estate of Conan Doyle Priorities]] and we learned what it was paid off in order like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for the first book Sandra Aragona to releasedbecome The Wife of Former Ambassador... Still, the case was won They have left The Career and this sequel is settled in our handsRome. Is it worth all Well 'settled' rather overstates the legal documents? What is the important verdictsituation and their dog, Beagle, at the end has no intention of the reading day?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329843X</amazonuk>slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessie Greengrass B08CHJLNBS|title=An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams

|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=The title storyHe's Charles Devereaux, which appears firstthirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, is exactly what it says on the tin: one hunterMayfair letting agents. She's story of travelling to remote islands to take part Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in massive culls of great auks, until they were simply gonethe heritage library next door. It Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's always hard to believe moved on from new age books like that species that once numbered in their millions, such as the passenger pigeonwhich leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, could go extinct so quickly, but when you read about the brutal slaughter tactics here – swinging clubs and boiling birds alive – you can see how to something a flightless bird was little deeper. Charles is more of a sitting target. The narrator makes no real attempt to defend [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself: the birds were there for the taking; that was , but, above all, he's shocked thatEmilia reads ''The Guardian''. Still They're obviously not at all compatible, he regrets their extinction, because 'in any loss you so why can see a shadow Charles not get this woman out of the way that you will be lost yourself.his mind? She' (Those interested in the great auks not his usual type at all: it's extinction may also want obvious to read the 2013 novel 'his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The Collector of Lost Thingsrelationship's obviously a non-starter, isn' by Jeremy Page.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610850</amazonuk>t it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin BarrettMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Young SkinsCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary=WeCurses. They're taken into the lives there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the youthful inhabitants verge of small town Ireland marrying, and older people too. It seems in seven short stories of differing styles but a shared settingway there's no escaping it. Barrett writes Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a doorman at a suburban nightclub, known and respected by standout – we may well think we know all the locals, although we only read there is to know about a brief affair and his vulnerability. Another tale portrays a young rocker and his emotional statethis accursed character, years after an incident that scarred him both physically demonised place, and mentally and made him the talk of the townthat other bewitched person. Other tales all share the same focus on people and small but meaningful personal events in their livesWe'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009959742X</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B ReidStibbe_Xmas|title=Beyond the Trees of Gulavstadt: A Gothic Short StoryAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Amy works Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for Claralinguathat – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, a London education company and if that runs English schools failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all over the worldhaving to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and Amy is travelling get too friendly with it to want to Gulavstadteat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a remote town in Eastern Europe, to inspect one time of the schoolsgreat boons. Gulavstadt is It's cash in hand for a town lot of myths plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the setting of thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a recent horror filmchild, ''The Thing Behind and as for the Trees''makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, exploiting did they even try and sell them - featuring medieval, flesh-eating ghouls with mouths lined with any other time of the sharpest of teeth. But myths don't bother Amy...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00U9I7KNI</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors0954899520|title=Karate Chop, and Minna Needs Rehearsal SpaceA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=The reviewer picks up Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the book.<br>The book is called ''Minna Needs Rehearsal Space''.<br>The book is entirely made out Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of one-sentence paragraphs.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs are very seldom poetic, but normally are grammatically correct sentences.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs on the whole have just one verbsimplicity, unless regarding naivety and sheer 'goodness' that from reported would later produce flowerpot men or unreported speechteletubbies.<br>The book concerns a middle-aged musician and composer who does indeed need rehearsal spaceSimple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness.<br>The book concerns What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a woman who suddenly gets more space than serious writer…that she wants when her boyfriend leaves her.<br>The boyfriend's departure causes wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a lot of people crowding around Minna, which causes a problem.<br>The problem might be resolved by a trip away from her city flat.<br>The title feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the book world might be ironic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271198</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malorie Blackman1911115847|title=Love HurtsNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=''Love HurtsNights of the Creaking Bed'' is all about heartache but it doesn't leave you berefta collection of short stories by Toni Kan. Mixed in are enough moments The series of stories tell of heartsease (the lives and heart's joy!) to keep you believing lusts of an assortment of characters living in loveand around Lagos, Nigeria. And we all want to believe Nigeria, in lovethis collection, don't we? If you are one is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the few who don't, you might as well look away now. The rest of us shadows and people are in killed for nothing more than a treatwrong look. This anthology has been gathered together by Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman, one of our favourite YA authors here at Bookbag, Kan writes with a vitality and certainly one who understands exactly how passion that allows these cynical stories to write about the highs and lows achieve a glimmer of love as it is experienced by young peoplehope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552573973</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Robertson1529014484|title=WallflowersExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Eliza Robertson won Over the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize while completing her MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. ''Wallflowers'' is already a bestseller in Robertson's native Canada. There is quite some variety across the seventeen past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories. Broadly speaking, though, there these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a few themes: moving on from loss, finding love in the midst science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of gentle madness, and interactions with the natural world, often on the edge of Canadawork by Ted Chiang. If you haven's British Columbia wildernesst then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408856794</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edith Pearlman1794467440|title=HoneydewWatchwords |author=Philip Neal

|summary=American This satisfying collection of short story writer [[:Category:Edith Pearlman|Edith Pearlman]] brings us stories has a compilation provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of stories the antique watches that have only inspired it. Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been seen separately in magazines over the yearstold was like a 1930s Cartier. This follows on from the huge success Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that''Binocular Vision'' (s how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in 2013)Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, but the short story collection friendship that led to Ms Pearlman being presented with grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the National Critics' Circle Awardseed of an idea for a book was born. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444797018</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Charteris and John Telfer (narrator)1529006031|title=Enter the SaintReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors

|summary=Lennon writes with In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a relaxedfew years ago, easy style when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of lifeage]], without being in any way stereotypicalI found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. Many The wacky-for-the-sake-of -it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a child. But I would suggest I am the people in perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories are dealing with normal frustrationsthat come at the core from a tangent, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that you're obviously supposed to root for (show the only exception is benefits of the industrialist in the eponymous tale, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat)oblique glance. There are some very clever characterisations – in I've always preferred coming to an author'Weber’s Heads output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and it's the same with franchises – I', d more likely go for example, Bree Tanner's short novella than the narrator is whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable and unfairhunch, for obvious reasons). For meanother thing, the most unsettling story is ''No Life'', because it portrays a decent couple at the mercy there was every reason to expect some kind of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work greatness here– with Carroll much loved by millions, just ordinary characters at the mercy of social power.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Lee1846974658|title=Bobcat and Other StoriesThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating=3.54

|summary=The first story On my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in ''Bobcat'' any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the title storynext person, and this alone what I'm really looking for is worth the price of admission. Plaster it with prizes, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade it can get. However'local' – the cookbook maybe, the last story echoes the firstmaps definitely, and but above all: the five folk tales in between are strangely repetitive. If I ever get to Burma, most with Midwestern North American narrators and 1980s university settings. MoreoverI won't need to hunt, all seven are in the first-person; I would have appreciated more variety of perspectivecan read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kelley ArmstrongB077969HN8|title=Otherworld Nights|rating=4|genre=Paranormal|summary=Kelley Armstrong revisits her hugely popular 'Otherworld' series in this collection of short stories, featuring many of the prominent characters from the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500667</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAlternative Medicine|author=Robin Ince and Johnny Mains (editors)|title=Dead FunnyLaura Solomon

|genre=HorrorShort Stories|summary=In Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a world twist of nightmares, disasters, death and ignominy there is a book called surrealism''. I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after''Dead FunnyI'd finished reading as I'. Invented purely to satisfy the remit built into its title, it collects some horror stories written by comedians, both household names and those more up-and-coming. Like all horror books it comes out at the time m not normally a fan of year best suited for horror – Halloweeneither, when we read with but I've come to two conclusions about the darkest corners in our rooms, with book: what the longest evenings outside – but is only suited for Halloween because it publisher says is a worthless, hellish piece of dross. It never excites, it is the most selfcorrect -serving vanity project, and the only funny thing about I really enjoyed it is that some idiot ever decided it was worth publishing. Now I know you know, courtesy of those bright shiny stars alongside this review, that this volume, Dead Funny, The comedy is not ''thattoo'' Dead Funnyblack and the surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. But just bear Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in mind the horror story this could have been, if these pages were not so surprisingly adept at taking those said nightmares, disasters, deaths and ignominy and presenting them to us so competentlynicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773762</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou9386897504|title=Black Greek CoffeeTales of Love and Disability|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=If your experience of Greece is as a tourist then youI'll almost certainly think of ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it in terms takes a great deal of history, mythology skill and startlingly white buildings against sapphire blue sky and sea. It looks idyllic, but there's a darker side talent to Greek life, explored by Konstantina Souzou-Kyrkou, in ''Black Greek Coffee'' - write a neat metaphor short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for the lives she looks at: sharp, bitter but ultimately addictivemore. In twenty three There are far too many collections of short stories she illuminates the chauvinism which are all too easy to put down and superstition, the concepts forget after you've read a couple of pieces. I''honour'' and the status ve recently read a couple of women, the dominance of religion and the lives led novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha'ordinarys Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell' people. They sound like grand themess Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, but the stories are grounded in domesticity and there will be few people - in any country - who have not been touched by one of the problemsso I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784620351</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1986586898|title=Doctor WhoGoing To The Last: 12 Doctors 12 Short StoriesAbout Horse Racing|author=Malorie Blackman, Holly Black and othersK D Knight

|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=How long do you keep your birthday presents for? A weekIn the opening story, a month, a year – man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or life? Is that time-scale different, perhaps, not to run his horse in the Gold Cup when youthe ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of H're nearly ', the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a thousand years old? I kind horse who only ask because Doctor Who is, wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of course, both 51 John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in our earthly, televisual representation) the Grand National and 900 and more in human years as considered a characterno-hoper. In 2013 we were given a great book that gave us a story for every Doctor Who we've seen on TV, in honour one of the most dramatic runnings of the 50th birthday proceedings. But now is a year onrace, and we're a further Doctor down pile-up occurred at the line23rd fence. And so what was '11 Doctors Foinavon, 11 Stories' is now '12 Doctors, 12 Stories'. So while who had been many of us would have cherished and kept said birthday presentlengths adrift, cleared the only addition is fence and galloped to the last, which like the rest was available as an e-book. So it's worth revisiting what I said about the book last timeline, then chucking in winning the (what might only be temporarily) concluding story race at the endodds of 100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141359889</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=9386897296|title=Problems with PeopleHell's Unveiling|author=David GutersonLaura Solomon|rating=43.5

|summary=A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling'Problems with People'. It' is s probably not much of a meandering exploration of spoiler to say that Marsha bested the relationshipsdevil in ''Marsha's Deal'', big but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and smallparticularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, that we form across she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a lifetime. Ranging from that of parent crime he didn't commit and child sent to that between landlord juvenile detention and tenantrefused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, Guterson’s observation of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the complexities devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and nuances involved in how we navigate these personal links weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. This is extremely sharp and true no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to lifeHell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408859963</amazonuk>