Changes

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08CHJLNBS|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|classThe Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a little deeper. Charles is more of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-"wikitable" cellpaddingstarter, isn't it?}}{{Frontpage|author=Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Curses. They're 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 verge of marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it. Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, that demonised place, and that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|isbn=1789091500}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre="15" <!Humour|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERErange and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long->hand as a child, and as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0954899520|title=A Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a 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 world might be.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1911115847|title=Nights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529014484|title=Exhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Over the past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=Watchwords |author=Philip Neal|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=This satisfying collection of short stories has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it.

<!-- Davidson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:150690551XPhilip Neal lost a watch.jpg|link=http://wwwIt was a watch he was fond of and had been told was like a 1930s Cartier.amazonInstead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it.coAnd that's how he became a watch collector.uk/dp/150690551X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Roses An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in December by Matthew de Lacey Davidson]]===Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book was born.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529006031|title=Return to Wonderland[[image:4star.jpg|linkauthor=Category:{{{Various Authors|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories=4.5|genre=Short Stories]] ''Roses in December'' is |summary=In following a collection of twenty-two short stories. And when I say short, I mean ''short'', with each just young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few pages long and some brushing the flash fiction genreyears ago, such is when the brevity. I think the shorter the story, the harder it is to write first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and the more difficult the task Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of engagingage]], then satisfying, the reader. So it is to the immense credit of Matthew de Lacey Davidson I found that I sighed in appreciation many times while readingdidn't really find too much favour with it. He has The wacky-for-the-sake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a good sense of which moments of the human experience to capture in order to make the point he wants to makechild. Some highlights: [[Roses in December by Matthew de Lacey Davidson|Full Review]] <!-- Onymouse -->| But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at the core from a tangent, that show the benefits of the oblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Onymouse_Quick.jpg|left|link=http://wwwaway pieces, and it's the same with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons).amazon.co.uk/dp/1788039122/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] For another thing, there was every reason to expect some kind of greatness here – with Carroll much loved by millions, surely pieces written with that love in mind could only provide for success after success? }}{{Frontpage| styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"1846974658|title=The Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating=4|genre=[[Quick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips! by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse]]|summary=== [[image:1.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] QuickOn my travels around the world, I have a tendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, while I'buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm sure youreally looking for is the 'local'd agree – apart from perhaps in surgeons. I like things that have a quirkthe cookbook maybe, the maps definitely, and I approve of but above all: the quickyfolk tales. If Iever get to Burma, I won've been dabbling in the world of creative writing for a few years nowt need to hunt, and whenever anyone asks what it is I mostly write, can read before I define it with the catch-all safety net of ''flippant''go. So this book should be right up my street, being as it is a bijou selection of illustrated and fairly large-print short stories. [[Quick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips! by Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse}}{{Frontpage|Full Review]]isbn=B077969HN8 <!-- Hill -->|title=Alternative Medicine|-author=Laura Solomon| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"4.5|genre=Short Stories[[image:Hill_Strange.jpg|left|linksummary=https://wwwLaura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147322117X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147322117X]]  | style="vertical-align I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of either, but I've come to two conclusions about the book: top; textwhat the publisher says is correct -align: left;"|===[[Strange Weather by Joe Hill]]=== [[image:5starand I really enjoyed it.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating The comedy is not ''too'' black and the surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the nicest possible way.}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Horror{{Frontpage|Horror]], [[:Category:Fantasyisbn=9386897504|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fictiontitle=Tales of Love and Disability|General Fiction]]author=Laura Solomon|rating=4Strange Weather is a collection of four short novels all linked by, unsurprisingly, strange and cataclysmic weather. Each novel is distinct and showcases Hill|genre=Short Stories|summary=I's restrained yet vivid style which ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes everyday events a great deal of skill and makes them bitingly, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence talent to write a short story which holds the nextreader and keeps them coming back for more. As Hill himself says ''the beauty There are far too many collections of the world short stories which are all too easy to put down and the horror forget after you've read a couple of the world were twined togetherpieces. I'', never is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments ve recently read a couple of abject horror are coupled with raw beauty. novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Strange Weather Marsha's Deal by Joe HillLaura Solomon|Full ReviewMarsha's Deal]] <!-- Stibbe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|and [[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpgHell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824Hell's Unveiling]]and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form. }}{{Frontpage | styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"1986586898|=title=Going To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe]]=K D Knight|rating== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Short Short Stories|Short Stories]] Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon summary=In the opening story, a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bethis wife. Nowadays it In ''A Grey Day's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat itrun his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. Christmas My favourite was ''The Story of H'', though, is the story of course also a time of great boonsFoinavon. It's cash in hand for H is depicted as a lot of plump people kind horse who can hire red suits only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and beards, it was always considered a godsend for postmen with all the thankno-you letters to aunties you saw twice hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, a decade that your parents made you write out in longpile-hand as a child, and as for up occurred at the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well23rd fence. Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, did they even try cleared the fence and sell them any other time of galloped to the line, winning the year? [[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe|Full Review]] <!-- Dick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dick_Electric.jpg|left|link=https:race at odds of 100//www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473223288?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473223288]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy to the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality. [[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick|Full Review]] <!-- Mettler -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mettler_15.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/191158636X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=191158636X]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Our world is obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent of social media, the updates on celebrity come 24 hours a day, delivered to us on our televisions, our magazines, on our phones and our computers. In focusing on these heightened and airbrushed lives though, are we missing the more interesting and human stories that are out there? That's what Erinna Mettler considers in ''15 Minutes'' - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, characters. [[Fifteen Minutes by Erinna Mettler|Full Review]] <!-- Hodgkinson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species… [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|Full Review]] <!-- Solomon -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Solomon_Taking.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/8193409353/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Taking Wainui by Laura Solomon]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] This is the first time I have come across Laura Solomon's work, a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetry. Although this book appears to be a collection of short stories, I found its format somewhat confusing. [[Taking Wainui by Laura Solomon|Full Review]] <!-- STEVEN -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Steven_Winter.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910674508/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winter. You are taken around the world as you read stories set in a variety of places from Helsinki to New York, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component of short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subject, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading a distinct story every time you open the book. [[Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Fear.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933216/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fear by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahl, these terrible tales of ghostly goings-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn the pages. [[Fear by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_War.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405933194?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1405933194]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[War by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity. [[War by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Trickery.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933232/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Trickery by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] How underhand could you be to get what you want? In these ten tales of dark and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals that we are at our smartest and most cunning when we set out to deceive others - and, sometimes, even ourselves. Here, among others, you'll read of the married couple and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitch-hiker and the grateful motorist, and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in his arsenal. [[Trickery by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Dahl -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dahl_Innocence.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405933259/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Innocence by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling of Roald Dahl's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on the joys and horrors of growing up. Among other stories, you'll read about the wager that destroys a girl's faith in her father, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who is horrified to discover that a fellow passenger once bullied him at school. [[Innocence by Roald Dahl|Full Review]] <!-- Hershman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hershman_Some.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910061484/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Some of Us Glow More Than Others by Tania Hershman]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkward. Going through from A-Z, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can be too much, but do you have the right to pick and choose according to what appeals, and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time I read one of this author's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sections. [[Some of Us Glow More Than Others by Tania Hershman|Full Review]] <!-- Kelman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Kelman_Shiver.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786890909/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories by James Kelman]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] This is the ninth book of short stories by this author, which means he's presented just as many collections of the short form as he has novels. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted for longer works (what with [[How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, or those like me who see the variety in a writer's short or less typical works to be the more interesting places to turn. Opening these pages, from the pen of such an esteemed pro, came with no small sense of anticipation. [[That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories by James Kelman|Full Review]] <!-- Various -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:VA_Change.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847158390/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Change Is Gonna Come by Various Authors]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''A Change Is Gonna Come'' is an anthology of stories and poems interpreting the theme of change by twelve BAME writers. It's Stripes Publishing's response to the under-representation of BAME authors in the UK. And it's a great response. I loved it. [[A Change Is Gonna Come by Various Authors|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|} {{newreview|author= Helen Stancey|title= The Madonna of the Pool|rating= 3.5|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most short story collections, an overarching theme is usually present in each of the narratives which help each story gently flow in to the next1. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores the quiet disappointments, achievements, and complications that each of us experience through everyday life. She draws attention to the small events and decisions that can both disrupt and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughout.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Walsh9386897296|title=Worlds from the WordHell's EndUnveiling|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this authorA little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo Deal by Joanna WalshLaura Solomon|VertigoMarsha's Deal]]and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. I myself missed outIt's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but that seemed the devil is not one to be vignettes from one charactertake defeat lying down. He's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a host morecrime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, as well as much less of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the sadness prevalent beforedevil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. Having had This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a brief encounter training complex on earth, complete with this an elevator to Hell.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1979217440|title=Marsha's Deal|author courtesy of her entry into =Laura Solomon|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=Marsha didn't have an easy ride in life the first time around. She'd been afflicted with [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection rare disease which turned parts of shortsher body to bone when they were damaged. Was it Finally, she was unable to stand her life any longer and went to Dignitas, the ideal calling card? Swiss euthanasia clinic. LetShe's face it, d thought that would be the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's sayend, from a specific hotel or twobut after cremation, as we see hereher body went straight to hell and she found herself face-to-face with the devil. And that was when she made the pact. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, In exchange for such intricate writing details about some of those who had been close to her - their strengths and weaknesses - she would be reborn on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>same day to the same parents but would live her life free of disease.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Phillips150690551X|title=Some Possible SolutionsRoses in December|author=Matthew de Lacey Davidson

|summary=Picture ''Roses in December'' is a world where youcollection of twenty-two short stories. And when I say short, a new motherI mean ''short'', move to with each just a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing few pages long and doing as you dosome brushing the flash fiction genre, such is the brevity. Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – but I think the shorter the story, the harder it's only is to be found on an alien planet. Or how about write and the more difficult the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything and everyone else alive as having no skintask of engaging, just organsthen satisfying, tissue and bone as if everyone was having the reader. So it is to the immense credit of Matthew de Lacey Davidson that I sighed in appreciation many times while reading. He has a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? A lot good sense of these stories are hard to summarise without dropping into the voice which moments of the ''Twilight Zone'' narration, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples of this author's unsettling look at human experience to capture in order to make the bizarre elements of lifepoint he wants to make.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk>Some highlights:

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cixin LiuOnymouse_Quick|title= The Wandering EarthQuick and Quirky: Short Stories with Quips!|author=Fred Onymouse and Ann Onymouse|rating= 1.5|genre= Science FictionShort Stories|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of womenQuick, and indeed, quirky, are positive attributes, I'm sure you's magazines (no disrespect) d agree – think againapart from perhaps in surgeons. One genre I like things that has always been have a stalwart supporter quirk, and encourager I approve of the short form quicky. I've been dabbling in the world of creative writing for a few years now, and whenever anyone asks what it is SciI mostly write, I define it with the catch-fiall safety net of ''flippant''. So when you pick this book should be right up my street, being as it is a collection bijou selection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth illustrated and thoughtfairly large-provoking philosophy as any similar novelprint short stories. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)Hill_Strange|title= I Am The Brother Of XXStrange Weather|author=Joe Hill|rating= 45|genre= Short Stories|summary=''I Am The Brother of XX'' Strange Weather is a collection of twenty one four short stories from Fleur Jaeggynovels all linked by, unsurprisingly, who expertly wields malevolence strange and spite throughout, from the evil done between husband cataclysmic weather. Each novel is distinct and wife in ''The Aviaryshowcases Hill'', a nasty tale of Oedipal menace s restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events and viciousmakes them bitingly, although admittedly, artful crueltyacerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to senseless annihilation and immolation in ''The Heir''the next. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination with religion, from the nun receiving a rather special sort of communion in As Hill himself says ''The Visitor'' to general references to the Church and religious devotion throughout many beauty of her stories. Family is also a recurrent theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings in the titular story, told from the point of view of a brother filled with longing world and loneliness trying to create a bond with his distant older sister, or the primal need to protect the bond between mother and son, regardless horror of the cost in ''Adelaideworld were twined together'', never is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments of abject horror are coupled with raw beauty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>