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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Marshall MooreBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm 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're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M|title=The Infernal RepublicSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=24.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''The Infernal RepublicGot 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 collection of flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short stories containing .'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a mixture flavour of general fiction, horror and fantasy published by Signal8Press, an imprint of author Marshall Moore's own publishing company Typhoon Media Ltd. Now normally I wouldn't pay much attention a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to who publishes draw out themes from all the books I read, but flash fictions in this case a book of them? Idon'm making an exception because I cant know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't honestly believe a fixed definition of flash fiction but that any traditional publisher would have put out for this book in this form. The whole collection is so badly crying out , author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a good editor that it actually ended up making me angry three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in placesyour average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881516404</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marc NashRachel Harrison|title=52FFBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=52FF is a collection of short stories in the flash fiction formatIt's been some time since I've read any horror. If you're new to flash fiction, you should know there are various definitions but here, Marc Nash chooses I had a format couple of under 1misspent teen years reading Stephen King,000 words. This gives him some leeway and so borrowing the pieces are in books from a wide variety of styles - some experimental - but all of them exploring a single central metaphor boy I fancied at school and all scaring myself half silly with a darkness about them which is sometimes explicit and sometimes only emerges after you've had time to think and digest. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005IHMZR6</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John E Flannery|title=Our Little Secret and Other Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Itthe point that I couldn's over eighteen months since we first encountered John Flannery and his debut collection t shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of shorts stories, [[Tobythe vampires outside! Don's Little Eden by John E Flannery|Tobyt worry - this short story collection isn's Little Eden]]. t like that! A golf course near Manchester It doesn't have those jump scares, and the characters who populated I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came sharply to life from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and we laughed and we smiled along with them. Things are different that at least in ''Our little Secret and Other Stories'' part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as we encounter violent deatha breakup, suicidetrying a new dieting app, delusion going to a hen party and mental illness. It's a good read but it's certainly not a comfortable onecoping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B007CKT6PG</amazonuk>1803363932
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Etgar KeretB0CCCVRSGX|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door Stories 2|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=In the opening, titular story, Keret This is forced by several people to create, Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and alter, a short short storyI took something from each of them. ItThere isn's t a plain metaphor for single one that doesn't deserve to be among the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from others or brings down the originaloverall quality. And what follows are probably the sort of It can be tricky to review shortstories without giving too much away, tantalising, open-ended, rough-round-the-edges so I'll just pick two to talk about and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on I think they give a nightly basisgeneral flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela CarterB09XZMCDVF|title=Burning Your BoatsStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating=54
|genre=Short Stories
|summary='Burning your Boats' brings together Carter's early works and her uncollected short stories, alongside A news vendor is crying out the collections 'Fireworks', 'The Bloody Chamber', 'Black Venus' and 'American Ghosts'. Carter's ability to take headlines in the everyday and transform it into middle of the fantastic is evident night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in stories that range from a cautionary tale of his imagination; a musician stickler for correct grammar goes back in love with his instrument time to correct an iconic quote; a lost motorist whose journey ends in nightmarish circumstances volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the Snow Pavilion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592916</amazonuk>}}pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander MacLeod1737030942|title=Light LiftingBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=Short stories may not be everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes, particularly with first time authors, there is an annoying tendency to be overly experimental. Not so with Alexander MacLeodyou deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's stunningly assured debut. True he has genetic 'form' in that he is the son of novelist and short story writer Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[:Category:Alistair MacLeodCape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Alistair MacLeodCape Henry House]], but even a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Right now, I didn't want a full-length novel, so, the quality of I turned to this collection, is remarkable. The collection anthology of seven verse and short stories is not overly themed, although certain issues . Bittick's writing has matured - and concerns do reappear, but what binds the stories together is a very human approach to adversityso have his characters. Well...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093940</amazonuk>most of them!
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529418100|authortitle=Peter OBruno'Donnells Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|titleauthor=Modesty Blaise: Live BaitMartin Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Married Love is Tessa Hadley’s second collection, containing twelve I'm not usually a fan of short stories looking at (mostly) modern relationships and family dynamics – many are about parents and their grown up children and in-laws, others are about couples. Flicking through I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to choose some 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 best temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and/or most interesting stories to mention, I have found a difficulty'm rather glad that I didn't even try. Almost all of these incisive For those new to the series, witty stories reveal there's an interesting group of characters I would like excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know more about after who's who and the end, sometimes from several different viewpoints, and it background to why Bruno is hard to pick out just a fewin St Denis. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096427</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam RossB08NF79QXT|title=Ladies and GentlemenCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=Adam RossThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's characters are driven nominated for - and wins - but I mean that in the wrong wayRetail Best Newcomer Award. TheyShe're not s delighted and the ones riding on a crest of a wave of motivation, steering their course through lifetwo people she's brought with her to the event couldn't be more pleased. NoSonja, instead they are passengersher mother, is an ex-model and who or whatever is at the wheel seems to have lost the satnavBrazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. So, in Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they'Futuresve known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, a middle-aged unemployed man finds himself giving life lessons Charles and a kick up the backside to a teenaged neighbour just as his own career seems about to enter its nth phase, with an airytheir four-fairy psychicyear-oriented company that won't ever go as far as telling him what his job might beold daughter, Ava. A professor who has to settle temporarily where his work takes him and not where he Life would like, has to wonder what to do when told of the action-packed adventures of be perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for one thing: she misses having a devil-may-care, come-what-may mechanicman in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087746</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Javier MariasB08KKQ85FN|title=While the Women are SleepingBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The first thing ''If a woman approaching the trivially minded will note is that this is not menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the complete edition company of While carrion crows or, more to the Women are Sleepingpoint, for not all about to discover the stories in the original Spanish volume are here. You might think that's because some have been hived off for a future 'best real world of' compilationbus timetables and paying his own gas bills. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what is. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael MorpurgoB08CHJLNBS|title=War: Stories of ConflictCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=43|genre=Confident ReadersWomen's Fiction|summary=Throughout historyHe's Charles Devereaux, war has blighted society thirty-eight and had long lasting impacts on not only those directly involved but a partner at Wickham Jones, the innocent bystanders tooMayfair letting agents. This collection of stories She's Emilia, twenty-nine, edited librarian and archivist in the heritage library next door. Emilia has read [[The Secret by the magnificent Michael Morpurgo himselfRhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, looks to explore the impacts something a little deeper. Charles is more of war on individual soldiersa [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, but, above all, families and especially childrenhe's shocked that Emilia reads ''The Guardian''. Every story approaches conflicts from a different angle and They're obviously not at all compatible, so why can Charles not get this ensures woman out of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. And given that even though there are a good number of short stories in the bookEmilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, you will never why does she feel as if it is becoming repetitive or dull. drawn to him? The stories do relationship's obviously a good job of conveying just how multinon-faceted and complex the concept of war is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447205014</amazonuk>starter, isn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew KaufmanMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=The Tiny WifeCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionFantasy|summary=It all begins with a bank robberyCurses. Only this isnThey't your typical sort re there throughout tales of bank robbery since the robber demands faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not money but instead each person in the bank must give him the item of most sentimental value to be able to do that they have with them. These range from photographs and a key through to a calculator...and Children can be cursed, as can princesses on taking these items he says he is also taking fifty percent the verge of their soulsmarrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there's no escaping it . Which is up to why the victims theme of this book of short stories is such a standout – we may well think we know all there is to find the way to get their souls backknow about this accursed character, that demonised place, or to die tryingand that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007429258</amazonuk>1789091500
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia DonaldsonStibbe_Xmas|title=The GloomsterAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=WeChristmas – 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've s all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, having to make sure it's suitably free-range and perhaps picking on one particular irritant organic – but not too organic that gets us so rattledyou can go and visit it, tetchy and narked all we 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 do is invoke "Hell hire red suits and damnation!" down on beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all creation the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long- includinghand as a child, and as for the makers of courseMeltis Newberry Fruits – well, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lloyd Jones0954899520|title=The Man in the Shed|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The title is certainly attention-grabbing and I hoped that the book would live up to my expectations. It did. The man in 'The Man in the Shed' is not blessed with a name. His name (whatever it is) is not important or relevant to the tale. It's all about ''why'' he's in the shed in the first place. This particular shed's in a garden of a house inhabited by a family which includes the young narrator. It's pretty clear that the marriage is going through a rocky patch right now. So who, you could reasonably wonder, is the odd one out here - the husband or the man in the shed. Jones tells us in his own way. He's a writer who catches your attention early, or he did in my case. No fancy statements or lazy cliches but good old plain English but with flair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544820</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Winter Book|author=Judith Hermann|title=AliceTove Jansson|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Tove Jansson''Alice'' is a collection of five short storiess worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, linked thematically since they all deal with written in the subject 1940s and later becoming television characters of deaththe simplicity, but they are also linked because the central characternaivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, Alicesimple 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 same in each story. So rather than feeling simple life that not only informed those child-like short stories the book has a hint trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the novel to it, yet the stories are never completed or fully told so it's a novel where you're not always sure what's going onworld might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668529X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jamil Ahmad1911115847|title=The Wandering FalconNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary="In the tangle ''Nights of crumbling, weather-beaten and broken hills, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, Creaking Bed'' is a military outpost…" Thus begins collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the tale lives and lusts of Tor Bazan assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, the Black FalconNigeria. To Nigeria, in this desolate place come two wandererscollection, a man is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a woman seeking refugewrong look. Refuge is denied them, since it places duties Kan writes with a vitality and passion that the fort commander cannot accept, but instead he offers them shelter from the wind allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of a hundred and twenty days. For as long as they want it. Shelter, and foodhope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145155</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cees Nooteboom and Ina Rilke (Translator)1529014484|title=The Foxes Come At Night And Other StoriesExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=There's a bold statement on Over the front cover frompast twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, as these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it happens, one of my favourite authors, [[:Category:A S Byatt|A S Byatt]] saying is likely that Nooteboom is ''one you have already come across some of the greatest modern novelists'' so I thought that I was in for a treatwork by Ted Chiang. But I didnIf you haven't enjoy the first short story. Not the greatest of starts. I was disappointed then take this opportunity to say the least and was wondering what all the fuss was about. Then I started to read the story entitled ''Thunderstorm'' and things started to pick up. I appreciated the sparse and elegant languagedo so now. Lines such as 'Five people at an outdoor cafe: two women Trust me; your imagination will be grateful... a solitary black man ... a couple at a table nearby. Enough for a film.' How lovely and evocative is that last line, I'm thinking. I read it twice as it was so good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050230</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Gee1794467440|title=Last FlingWatchwords |author=Philip Neal
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Sue Gee is well known for her novels, but this is her first This satisfying collection of short stories. Short story collections are not for everyone. I've always enjoyed them since they fit easily into a busy life, leaving you feeling as if you've lived through a whole story in just a short space of time. It's easier to find the time for a quick story sometimes than to sit down with a four hundred page novel!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773061</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Simpson|title=In-Flight Entertainment|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=I am always thrilled to see that Helen Simpson has brought out a new book. I am a big fan of her crisp, funny, observant short stories. So I picked up 'In Flight Entertainment' with some anticipation. I was not disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546124</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John E Flannery|title=Toby's Little Eden|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=John E Flannery's debut collection contains four short stories (although one is more of a novella) and a series of amusing sketches about the ground staff at a new Golf Course in north Manchester. They're more varied than they might appear provenance at first glance and demonstrate Flannery's ability to get straight to the heart of the story without wasting words and to develop character least as economically beguiling as possible, whilst still holding the reader's imagination. I knew as soon as I began ''The Ghostwriter'' that I wasn't going to be disappointed as a man who has written successful thrillers is possessed by provenance of the spirit of Charles Dickens. It's a neat riff on John Braine's idea that novelist wait for an idea to descend on them and Graham Greene's belief antique watches that novelists are like mediumsinspired it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445777940</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aidan Chambers1529006031|title=The Kissing GameReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartialsfew years ago, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving when the first book she was in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memoriesAnthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], and those causing tension, as he rests up before actionI found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. And The wacky-for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his highthe-sake-octane downtime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise -it immediatelydid not gel, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildingsI don't remember loving it more as a child. There was some damage during But I would suggest I am the war (which might, or might not have been down perfect audience for this book. I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at the core from a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but tangent, that show the benefits of the gaps have been filled with some beautifuloblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, erallegedly throw-away pieces, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as it's the village is, itsame with franchises – I'd more likely go for Bree Tanner's not short novella than the star of The Vernham Chronicleswhole Twilight saga (although that remains just a hunch, for obvious reasons). The stars are the people who live 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 Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>mind could only provide for success after success?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady1846974658|title=The Lost Stories of Sherlock HolmesLong Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It is On my travels around the world, I have a truth universally acknowledged that a successful detective character will have far too many cases in his career for it tendency to be at all realistic. The worst case end up in point are the Hardy Boysany bookshop that is selling English-language books, who have had two hundred or more adventures and are still not 20. Slightly more literary, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmeswhile I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm really looking for Watson declaimed many times that he did not write down all that manis the 's exploits. Tony Reynolds here gives us eight more cases, making Holmeslocal' workload even more impressive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685618</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Polly Samson|title=Perfect Lives|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about a group of people living in an English seaside town. Each story of challenged relationships– the cookbook maybe, devastating discoveries and objects and people with a history is carefully and beautifully crafted, stands alone and works well in its own rightthe maps definitely, but the connections between above all : the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimensionfolk tales. Each story made me want to look at the others again If I ever get to understand how they all connectBurma, to piece together the different bits of peopleI won's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity t need to see some of the characters from several different perspectiveshunt, and perhaps make the short stories more satisfying to those who are dissatisfied by their brevity, as some of the same characters reappear, so offering some of the advantages of the novel while staying in the short story form. There are four stories told in the first person by an unnamed woman who is married with two young sons, and then one of her sons has a story of his own (Ivan Knows). There are a variety of narrative viewpoints – women, men, a little boy, a teenage girl, first and third personI can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shena MackayB077969HN8|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected StoriesAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This volume of Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories, first published in 2008 but new in paperback, has a lot to offer those familiar with Shena Mackay's previous work and readers coming to her stories for the first time, 'Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a generous thirty six stories - thirteen recent stories collected in book form for the first time are combined with twenty three from Shena Mackaytwist of surrealism''s previous collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099469677</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sheila O I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'Flanagan|title=A Season m not normally a fan of either, but I've come to Remember|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We first meet two conclusions about the book: what the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating publisher says is correct - and exhaustingI really enjoyed it. The novel comedy is bang up to date so Onot ''too'Flanagan gets in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used to empty rooms, at any time of the year. Normally black and the Lodge surrealism is gentle and perhaps best described as a full housetwist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in - and the story starts proper, so to speaknicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Mortimer9386897504|title=Rumpole at ChristmasTales of Love and Disability|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This book is as slim as one of RumpoleI's beloved packets ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of cigars skill and it can also be read in the time it takes an average turkey talent to cook in write a short story which holds the oven on Christmas Dayreader and keeps them coming back for more. A handful There are far too many collections of festive, short stories is covered in this book with its appealing front coverwhich are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a couple of pieces. Most I've recently read a couple of the stories have been previously published elsewhere, mainly in novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell'The Strand Magazines Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell' but also in some of the national newspaperss Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Raymond Carver1986586898|title=BeginnersGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholicIn 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. Carver In ''A Grey Day's characters tend ' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to drink excessively, and run his stories often examine horse in the Gold Cup when the negative impact ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of drinking on his central characterH''s relationships, the story of Foinavon. But nowadays, what we talk about when we talk about Carver H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the role yard of his editorJohn Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no-hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, Gordon Lisha pile-up occurred at the 23rd fence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540320< Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/amazonuk>1.
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=When A little while ago I think of John Grisham really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I tend was delighted by the opportunity to think firstly of lawyersread the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. Well, actually, I think It's probably not much of Tom Cruise first a spoiler to be honestsay that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', and then but the whole lawyer thingdevil is not one to take defeat lying down. I expect surprising twists He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and longparticularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, detailed plotsshe's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. This collection, however, Daniel is framed for a book of short stories so has crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to work differentlylive with Marsha. There isn't room within a short story for a lengthyThen, twisting plotof course, and so Grisham has to rely on there are all the other skills children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to make them workthe devil's evil ends. My feeling was that some do He's out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and some don'tas with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. Set in America's Deep South all This is no small-scale operation, either - the stories revolve around devil has set up a rather mixed bag of characters from Ford Countytraining complex on earth, complete with the ever-present lawyers but also gamblers, murderers, con artists, drunks and scoundrelsan elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099545780</amazonuk>
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