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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erinna MettlerAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= Fifteen MinutesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 45|genre= Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Our world is obsessed with celebrity culture - and in this advent ''Opening up new ways of social media, thinking about the updates on celebrity shape of things to 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'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, are we missing the more interesting and human stories I must confess that are out there? Thathave been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I's ve kept up reasonably well with what Erinna Mettler considers in 's advantageous to me but I'15 Minutesm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they' - short stories that feature celebrity encounters told through re talking about or the eyes of ordinary, but no less compelling, characterslatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>191158636X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)B0CDZRGT1M|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the NorthSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=34.5|genre=Anthologies Short Stories|summary=A compilation like this should ''Got a minute to be nigh on brilliantamused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash. It's not one author's best ''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short works, it.''s that  Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a dozen. It's not fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from one snapshot all the flash fictions in time, as some were written the year a book of publication and some in the 1960s. Itthem? I don's not from one tiny patch of authort know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn's desk or one set t a fixed definition of laptop keys, flash fiction but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinaviafor this collection, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenlandauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living about a single page in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testifyyour average paperback. 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…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Laura SolomonRachel Harrison|title=Taking WainuiBad Dolls|rating=24|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary= This is the first It's been some time since I have come across Laura Solomon's workve read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for both her fiction and poetry. fear of the vampires outside! Although Don't worry - this book appears short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to be a collection read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of short that feeling came from the fact that these are storiesabout women, I found its format somewhat confusingliving normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenneth StevenB0CCCVRSGX|title=Winter TalesStories 2|author=Richard F Walker

|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection This is Richard F Walker's second volume of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winter. You There are taken around the world as you read stories set thirteen in a variety all and I took something from each of places from Helsinki to New York, Germany to Russiathem. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises There isn't a key component of short stories - single one that you doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can read each story in one sitting - be tricky to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectreview short stories without giving too much away, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a distinct story every time you open the bookgeneral flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1739593901|title= Fear22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-chilling vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories chosen by Roald Dahlas I find it easy to read a few stories and 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: 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, these terrible tales what did I think of ghostly goingsa book of twenty-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn the pagestwo science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933216</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB09XZMCDVF|title= WarStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring ''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time as to correct an iconic quote; a fighter pilot volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the Second World War as well as seven other tales new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…'' This collection of conflict thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and strifestrange, Dahl reveals the human side even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of our most inhumane activityshort fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1737030942|title= TrickeryBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating= 54|genre= Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=How underhand could Sometimes, you be to get what you want? In these ten tales of dark deserve a treat and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals that we are at our smartest and most cunning mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when we set out to deceive others - andI read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], sometimes, even ourselvesa rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Here Right now, among othersI didn't want a full-length novel, you'll read so I turned to this anthology of the married couple verse and the parting gift which rocks their marriage, the light fingered hitchshort stories. Bittick's writing has matured -hiker and the grateful motorist, and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in so have his arsenalcharacters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933232</amazonuk> Well... most of them!

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1529418100|title= InnocenceBruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=What makes us innocent I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and how do we come forget to lose pick it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling up again - but I am a fan of Roald DahlMartin Walker's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the joys temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and horrors of growing upI'm rather glad that I didn't even try. Among other stories For those new to the series, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you'll read need to know about the wager that destroys a girlwho's faith in her father, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who background to why Bruno is horrified to discover that a fellow passenger once bullied him at schoolin St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933259</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania HershmanB08NF79QXT|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short Stories Women's Fiction|summary=I wonThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. She's delighted and the two people she's brought with her to the event couldn't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardmore pleased. Going through Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from A. Jessica's thirty-Z, witnessing a bounty of ideas four and characters in short order can be too much, but do you have the right to pick Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and choose according to what appealsLiberty adores Jessica's husband, Charles and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been consideredtheir four-year-old daughter, surelyAva. Such Life would appear to be the case here. The last time I read perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for 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 thing: she misses having a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionsman in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB08KKQ85FN|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesBut Never For Lunch|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories |summary=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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Various Authors|title= A Change Is Gonna Come|rating= 5|genre= Teens|summary= ''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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>}}{{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 next. 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>}}{{newreview|author=Joanna Walsh|title=Worlds from the Word's EndSandra Aragona|rating=3.54

|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection 'If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of short storiescarrion crows or, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed outmore to the point, but that seemed about to be vignettes from one characterdiscover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.'' You don's narration – here we t get homosexual male narrators and a host moremany better opening sentences than that, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. do you? Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Lydia PyneSandra Aragona|Object LessonsSorting the Priorities]] series, I and we learned what it was intrigued like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by her name being stamped on a selection the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of shortsFormer Ambassador... Was it the ideal calling card? They have left The Career and settled in Rome. LetWell 's face it, settled' rather overstates the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or twosituation and their dog, as we see here. Perhaps I should have geared myself upBeagle, howeverhas no intention of slowing down any time soon, for such intricate writing on said postcards – despite being sixteen and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>deaf.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen PhillipsB08CHJLNBS|title=Some Possible SolutionsCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=Picture He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a world where youpartner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, a new mothertwenty-nine, move to a town where you slowly start to realise that every other woman seems a replica of you – dressing librarian and doing as you doarchivist in the heritage library next door. Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but itshe's only to be found moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on an alien planet. Or how about the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything and everyone someone else alive as having no skin's philosophies, just organs, tissue and bone as if everyone was having to something a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? little deeper. A lot Charles is more of these stories are hard to summarise without dropping into the voice of the a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, he's shocked that Emilia reads ''Twilight ZoneThe Guardian'' narration, but they. They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not specifically genre works – they're just further examples get this woman out of this authorhis mind? She's unsettling look not his usual type at the bizarre elements of lifeall: it's obvious to his friends.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk> And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, isn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Cixin LiuMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title= The Wandering EarthCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating= 4.5|genre= Science FictionFantasy|summary= If anyone thought 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 the short story . Children can be cursed, as a form had been relegated to can princesses on the pages verge of womenmarrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's magazines (no disrespect) – think againescaping it. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager Which is why the theme of this book of the short form stories is Sci-fi. So when you pick up such a collection of Sci-fi shortsstandout – we may well think we know all there is to know about this accursed character, you know that it will have just as much depth demonised place, and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novelthat other bewitched person. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to We'd 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!very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Fleur Jaeggy and Gini Alhadeff (translator)Stibbe_Xmas|title= I Am The Brother Of XXAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating= 4.5|genre= Short StoriesHumour|summary=''I Am The Brother Christmas – the time of XX'' is traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a collection of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggytime it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, who expertly wields malevolence and spite throughout, from if that failed the evil done between husband and wife in hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it'The Aviary'', a nasty tale of Oedipal menace s suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and vicious, although admittedlyvisit it, artful cruelty, to senseless annihilation and immolation in ''The Heir''. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination get too friendly with religion, from the nun receiving a rather special sort of communion in ''The Visitor'' it to general references want to the Church and religious devotion throughout many of her storieseat it. Family Christmas, though, is of course also a recurrent theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings time of great boons. It's cash in the titular storyhand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, told from the point of view of it was always a brother filled godsend for postmen with longing and loneliness trying all the thank-you letters to create aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a bond with his distant older sisterchild, or and as for the primal need to protect the bond between mother makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and son, regardless sell them any other time of the cost in ''Adelaide''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>year?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Malcolm Devlin0954899520|title= You Will Grow Into ThemA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Tove Jansson''You Will Grow Into Them'' is a thrilling collection of ten short stories all centred s worldwide fame lasts on the nature Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of transition the simplicity, naivety and changesheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. The Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often grisly, macabre and ghoulish nature 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 stories included in Devlin's debut collection are intoxicatingly illicit natural world and the darkness within each tale is deviously addictivesimple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907389431</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tove Jansson1911115847|title= Letters From KlaraNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation ''Nights of the Moomin family, Jansson Creaking Bed'' is rather belatedly beginning to gather a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort lives and lusts of an assortment of books'' characters living in and Thomas Tealaround Lagos, who has been responsible for most of the translationsNigeria. Receiving Nigeria, in this onecollection, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the series, shadows and secondly there'll come people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to be had. The former will be rectified, the latter is achieve a sad thoughtglimmer of hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lee Child1529014484|title= No Middle NameExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating= 45|genre= Crime Science Fiction|summary= There is a theoryOver the past twenty-eight years, to which those who regularly read my reviews will know I sometimes subscribeTed Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, which says that the short story's heyday has passed and these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it has now put itself out to grass. This is particularly true, likely that you have already come across some say, and I have been known to concur, of the crime and thriller genreswork by Ted Chiang. Tosh! I can only apologise to all authors involved and own up: I simply If you haven't been paying attention. Not even then take this opportunity to shorter offerings my by favourite authorsdo so now. So: big thanks to Lee Child and publishers Bantam Press for putting Trust me straight with ''No Middle Name'' : a collection of short stories about my favourite latter-day, American-style, Robin Hood by the name of ''Jack Reacher''; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593079019</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=A Fanfare of TalesWatchwords |author=Patrick C ReidyPhilip Neal

|summary=I love This satisfying collection of short stories, so I'm always happy when has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it. Philip Neal lost a new collection arrives for reviewwatch. ''A Fanfare It was a watch he was fond of Tales'' by Patrick C Reidy promises me ''and had been told was like a compilation 1930s Cartier. Instead of short stories mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that highlight the adventures of diverse characters as each encounters unforeseen challenges''s how he became a watch collector. I like this premiseAn eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. So how does 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 shape up? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524665983</amazonuk>was born.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero1529006031|title=Children of Lucifer: Modesty BlaiseReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors|rating=34.5|genre=Graphic Novels Short Stories|summary=Out In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of ninetyage]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the-five diverse comic strip storiessake-of-it did not gel, and I don't remember loving it more as a child. But I would suggest I am the publication of perfect audience for this book leaves just the last three yet . I had every chance to be presented in enjoy these fabulous large format paperbacksshort stories that come at the core from a tangent, that show the benefits of the oblique glance. So if you haven’t yet met with the sassy brunette with her curves and her great crimeI've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-solving mindaway pieces, and of course it's the same with her Williefranchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, this is the last-but-one chance for you to do soobvious reasons). And if you have any interest in quick little action talesFor another thing, or even dated kitschthere 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 both apply here, then you should eagerly be on board…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329860X</amazonuk>success after success?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Edwards (editor)1846974658|title= Miraculous Mysteries (British Library Crime Classics)|rating= 5|genre= Crime|summary=Consider the following scenario: a policeman hears someone screaming and runs to a house on a particular street, number 13, from where the noise is emanating. When he peeps through the letterbox he discovers a dead man in the hallway with a knife in his throat. He goes to fetch help, but upon returning, finds that the street does not have a number 13 and that the body and the room he saw have both mysteriously vanished...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356738</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michael R Lane|title= UFOs and GOD: A Collection of Short Stories|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=From stories of young people caught up in a Robin Hood style operation gone wrong, to a believer in God having her faith shaken by the arrival of aliens, author Michael R Lane has compiled a collection of fascinating and clever short stories here. From farm to urban, from World War II to the Digital Age, the places and times, people and events in ''UFOs and God'' spotlight the tender underbelly of the human condition in all its glory and despair on these varied stages of fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>163491712X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Rick Bass|title= For a Little While|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=''For a Little While'' is a collection of twenty-five short stories from Rick Bass. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped back, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death to choices made and chances taken.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>}}{{newreview <!-- remove 25/1 -->|title=A Collection of Short StoriesLong Path To Wisdom|author=Gillian FletcherJan-EdwardsPhilipp Sendker

|summary=Marged Evans allowed On my travels around the world, I have a break-tendency to end up with a lover to affect everything in her life. Osian wanted to invest in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the present but Marged loved next person, what I'm really looking for is the past. Since they drifted apart, Marged's life has been carefullocal' – the cookbook maybe, orderedthe maps definitely, unadventurous. But then Osian sends her a Christmas card and everything changes. ''Marged Evans'' is but above all: the first and longest in this collection of short stories from Gillian Fletcher-Edwardsfolk tales. It If I ever get to Burma, I won's almost a novella and its initially slow pace sets off quite the masterclass in how one event t need to hunt, I can throw everything into unexpected - but lovely - chaosread before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524662445</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sybil Marshall and John LawrenceB077969HN8|title= The Book of English Folk Tales|rating= 4|genre= Anthologies|summary= From ghosts to witches, to giants and fairies, ''The Book of English Folk Tales'' is a fascinating collection of stories retold by social historian and folklorist Sybil Marshall. Out of print for over three decades, this beautiful new clothbound edition is complete with wood engraved illustrations by John Lawrence and is sure to capture the attention of a new generation of lovers of folklore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468313177</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAlternative Medicine|author=Shirley McKay|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Laura Solomon

|genre=Crime (Historical)Short Stories|summary=A lot of crime happens Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in St Andrews during 1588 and therefore in the life ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of law lecturer and local investigator Hew Cullen toosurrealism''. As we travel through 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: what the year with him, his recently wedded English wife Frances, doctor brother in law Giles publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it. The comedy is not ''too'' black and his sister Meg, the wise woman, we also encounter some surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a twist or flick of his most interesting casesreality when you were least expecting it. In fact there's one Your comfort zones are going to match each of be invaded in the year's big festivals: Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas, Martinmas and Yulenicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973635</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=9386897504|title=Mary Telford Tales of Love and Louise VerityDisability|titleauthor=SinsLaura Solomon

|summary=Is there enough new to say about the seven deadly sins? WeI've seen them all shown to us, from school age always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and up talent to write a short story which holds the movie ''Se7en'', which we sincerely hope was NOT shown to anyone at school agereader and keeps them coming back for more. We can each recount them There are far too many collections of short stories which are all, having been long familiar with them, even if we probably cantoo easy to put down and forget after you't pin down when they were actually set in stone without helpve read a couple of pieces. Similarly, is there anything new in the world I've recently read a couple of fairy tale? We know the tropes novellas by Laura Solomon - characters identified [[Marsha's Deal by their status or gender (the woman, the husband), a clear set of rules to obey, Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and a moral as strong as, if not stronger than, the formulae involved. Well, this volume demands we decide the answer to those questions as being positive ones, and if it[[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's not always definitive in the writing here that there is something newUnveiling]] and enjoyed them, rest assured there will be something in the imagery that will definitely strike one as freshso I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843516624</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carys Bray and others1986586898|title=How Much the Heart Can HoldGoing To The Last: Seven Short Stories on LoveAbout Horse Racing|author=K D Knight|rating=34.5

|summary=This Sceptre collection does In the opening story, a 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 not have to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of H'', the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as simple a remit as it might appear; these are kind horse who 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 considered a no straightforward love stories-hoper. Instead, they each take In one aspect of love – often one the most dramatic runnings of the ancient Greek classifications – and provide race, a whole new way of thinking about itpile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. After all Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the heart holds a lot race at odds of metaphorical weight100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Simpson9386897296|title=CockfostersHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon

|summary=This 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''. It's probably not much of a belated reunion for me, having been introduced spoiler to say that Marsha bested the authordevil in ''Marsha's snappy short story collections courtesy Deal'', but the very first devil is not one while at unito take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). MindAlthough a strong person, it was she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a much more gentle crime he didn't commit and placid reunion than the one that starts this book – Julie sent to juvenile detention and Philippa have had a shop-bought curry together, but have had refused permission to return to forsake a cultural chat for a trip haring along the London Underground chasing after a pair of glasses one of them left behindlive with Marsha. The piece is definitely about the subject Then, of ageing – about time passed and what might be remaining ahead – but you soon discover that not only do course, there are all the pieces here have titles that other children who are unadorned place names, not only targeted but they - worst of all concern that very theme- subverted to the devil's evil ends. Can anyone, let alone Helen Simpson, sustain such a vaguely morbid topic over a full collection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178470198X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=David Beckler|title= The Road More Travelled: Tales of those seeking refuge|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories|summary= He''The Road More Travelled'' is an anthology of short stories - s out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and one poem as with many foster children, their self- written in response to the refugee crisis as it exploded across our TV screens and newspapers throughout 2015esteem is very fragile. To the horror of the authors This is no small-scale operation, either - the language used by many was aggressive and dehumanisingdevil has set up a training complex on earth, describing this mass of desperate people as a swarm or a horde. The stories together form a response complete with an elevator to this otheringHell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993147224</amazonuk>