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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francis BennettAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Crabber StoriesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber - a nickname which he once earned and which then stuck - and he grew ''Opening up on new ways of thinking about the shores shape of Long Island in the nineteen-fiftiesthings to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. It was a close-knit community and a time when children had Well, I must confess that there have been more freedom than they are likely to be allowed nowa few decades of technology in my lifetime. We watch as Crabber grows from being a boy still suffering from the death of his elder brother when we first met him through to a time when heI've kept up reasonably well with what's old enough advantageous to go on a hunting trip on me but I'm left with the mainland with a local familyfeeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. He tells his own storiesOf course, as truthfully as he can I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and with end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicismlatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Tillotson and Penny ThomasB0CDZRGT1M|title=All Shall be WellSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=AnthologiesShort Stories|summary=Twenty five years - ''Got a quarter of a century - 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 long timeflash. It's an incredible length of time as an independent publisher, particularly one which specialises in publishing the best in Welsh women's writing, but that''s exactly what Honno have achievedSome are funny. Some are poignant. To celebrate the occasion they've published this anthology of twenty five All are short stories and non-fiction pieces. They've previously been seen in the numerous anthologies published by Honno but when combined they give an interesting and enlightening insight into the work of these great writers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784337</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|author=Marshall Moore|title=The Infernal Republic|rating=2|genre=Short Stories|summary=''The Infernal Republic'' is Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a collection flavour of short stories containing a mixture 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 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>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marc NashRachel Harrison|title=52FFBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=52FF is It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a collection 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 fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short stories in the flash fiction format. If youstory collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn're new t have to flash fictionread it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, you should know there and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are various definitions but herestories about women, Marc Nash chooses a format of under 1living normal lives,000 words. This gives him some leeway and so that at least in part, the pieces are in horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a wide variety of styles - some experimental - but all of them exploring new dieting app, going to a single central metaphor hen party and all a coping with a darkness about them which is sometimes explicit and sometimes only emerges after you've had time to think and digestgrief. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B005IHMZR6</amazonuk>1803363932
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E FlanneryB0CCCVRSGX|title=Our Little Secret and Other Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's over eighteen months since we first encountered John Flannery and his debut collection of shorts stories, [[Toby's Little Eden by John E Flannery|Toby's Little Eden]]. A golf course near Manchester and the characters who populated it came sharply to life and we laughed and we smiled along with them. Things are different in ''Our little Secret and Other Stories'' as we encounter violent death, suicide, delusion and mental illness. It's a good read but it's certainly not a comfortable one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B007CKT6PG</amazonuk>}} {{newreview2|author=Etgar Keret|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door 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>
}}
{{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.''
{{newreview|author=Ray Fawkes|title=One Soul|rating=4I've got a couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=When reading this it soon becomes very clear we I're reading m not one, but nineteen, keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few storiesand then forget to return to the book. With each page divided into a regular 3x3 grid there are eighteen images on each double page spread, and every one shows an episode, or a beat, of a different characterThere's life in turn, from being got to be a babe-in-arms very compelling hook to deathkeep me engaged. However, the way they join up - everyoneThen there's figurative moment comes at once, at times the artistscience fiction: far too often it's heavy black ink makes all eighteen images coincide into one image - proves there is a separate, individual tale around and behind the others, one technology which will end takes centre stage along with the most delightful moral world- that building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the ability to be anything one imagines is in our DNAtechnology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1934964662</amazonuk>
}}
 {{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…''
{{newreview|author=Anita AnandThis collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together is the idea that remarkable and strange, Julian Barneseven miraculous, Bella Bathurst, Alan Bennett and others|title=The Library Book|rating=4things can happen to ordinary people.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=I had better begin by saying And that I had a vested interest in liking this book since I am a chartered librarian myself ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so am wholeheartedly in support this little treasury of saving our nation's public libraries. But you don't need to be a librarian to enjoy this book. It short fiction is rich with anecdotes from some wonderful writers never boring and makes a pleasant read whether you're keen to save libraries or notnever quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250057</amazonuk>
}}
 {{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!
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529418100|authortitle=Peter OBruno'Donnells Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|titleauthor=Modesty Blaise: Live BaitMartin Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=We're back in the gritty yet glamorous world of Modesty Blaise - at least, as gritty and glamorous as you could get in the Evening Standard daily comic strip in the late 1980s. Titan have had a mammoth undertaking to reproduce all the original strips in handy large-format graphic novel compendia, and this latest covers three stories, all of which I consider greater in depth than those in the other volume I've reviewed - [[Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline by Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell|Sweet Caroline]].
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686682</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jon McGregor
|title=This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The clue is in the Christopher Brookmyre-styled title. If the events, characters and circumstances in these stories are known to you, then you have my sympathies. A man causes an embarrassment trying to watch his daughter's first school nativity play. Another has a phobia of eggs containing an avian foetus when he puts knife and fork to them. There's a car crash here - and there, a drowning, some arson, some theft... and a lot of clues that point to some national disaster. Take all those clues as one and you eventually see this is more than just a collection of disparate short stories, but a very fractured, obfuscated novel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809265</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tessa Hadley
|title=Married Love
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Married Love is Tessa Hadley’s second collection, containing twelve 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 the book to choose some of the best and/or most interesting stories to mention, I have found a difficulty. Almost all of these incisive, witty stories reveal an interesting group of characters I would like to know more about after the end, sometimes from several different viewpoints, and it is hard to pick out just a few.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096427</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Adam Ross
|title=Ladies and Gentlemen
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Adam Ross's characters are driven - but I mean that in the wrong way. They're m not the ones riding on usually a crest fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a wave fan of motivation, steering their course through life. No, instead they are passengers, and who or whatever is at Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the wheel seems temptation to have lost the satnav. So, in read ''Bruno's Challenge'Futures', a middle-aged unemployed man finds himself giving life lessons was hard to resist and a kick up the backside to a teenaged neighbour just as his own career seems about to enter its nth phase, with an airy-fairy psychic-oriented company I'm rather glad that wonI didn't ever go as far as telling him what his job might beeven try. A professor who has For those new to settle temporarily where his work takes him and not where he would likethe series, has there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to wonder what know about who's who and the background to do when told of the action-packed adventures of a devil-may-care, come-what-may mechanicwhy Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087746</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Javier MariasB08NF79QXT|title=While the Women are SleepingCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=The first thing Thirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the trivially minded will note is that this is not the complete edition of While the Women are SleepingCherry Blossom Boutique, for not all just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the stories in Retail Best Newcomer Award. She's delighted and the two people she's brought with her to the original Spanish volume are hereevent couldn't be more pleased. Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. You might think thatJessica's because some have been hived off for a future thirty-four and Liberty's best offriend: they' compilationve known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's husband, Charles and their four-year-old daughter, Ava. But Life would be perfect for Liberty if this isnit wasn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what isfor one thing: she misses having a man in her life. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella GibbonsB08KKQ85FN|title=Christmas at Cold Comfort FarmBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=3.54
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=First things first. There's only one story in this collection about Cold Comfort Farm. This is 'If a story about woman approaching the farm before Flora Poste arrives, menopause can be likened to a 'prequel' if you like. It features the Starkadder family at ChristmasRottweiler in lipstick, with an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a dispute over a coffin-nail and it did make me smile. I suspect it is one for fans, however. For instance, pampered peacock about to be released into the appearance company of a teenage Dick Hawk-Monitorcarrion crows or, already in love with Elfinemore to the point, shoots a knowing wink at about to discover the devoted but would leave most readers coldreal world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528673</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Michael Morpurgo|title=War: Stories of Conflict|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Throughout historyYou don't get many better opening sentences than that, war has blighted society do you? We first met His Excellency and had long lasting impacts on not only those directly involved but The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the innocent bystanders too. This collection of stories, edited Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the magnificent Michael Morpurgo himself, looks Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to explore be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the impacts Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of war on individual soldiers, families and especially childrenFormer Ambassador... Every story approaches conflicts from a different angle They have left The Career and this ensures that even though there are a good number of short stories settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the booksituation and their dog, you will never feel as if it is becoming repetitive or dull. The stories do a good job Beagle, has no intention of conveying just how multi-faceted slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and complex the concept of war isdeaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447205014</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew KaufmanB08CHJLNBS|title=The Tiny WifeCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating=4.53|genre=Literary Women's Fiction|summary=It all begins with He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a bank robberypartner at Wickham Jones, the Mayfair letting agents. Only this isnShe't your typical sort of bank robbery since the robber demands not money but instead each person s Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in the bank must give him the item of most sentimental value that they have with themheritage library next door. These range Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from photographs and a key through new age books like that, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to something a calculatorlittle deeper...and on taking these items he says he Charles is also taking fifty percent more of their soulsa [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, and 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 is up 's obvious to the victims his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to find the way to get their souls backhim? The relationship's obviously a non-starter, or to die trying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007429258</amazonuk>isn't it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler Marie O'Regan and Julia DonaldsonPaul Kane (editors)|title=The GloomsterCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=WeCurses. They've all been re therethroughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Finding fault with everything around usChildren can be cursed, and perhaps picking as can princesses on one particular irritant that gets us so rattledthe verge of marrying, tetchy and narked 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 we can do there is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - includingto know about this accursed character, of coursethat demonised place, ourselvesand that other bewitched person. After all, our lot is so bad it wonWe't make anything much worsed be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>1789091500
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lloyd JonesStibbe_Xmas|title=The Man in the ShedAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=The title is certainly attention-grabbing and I hoped that Christmas – the book would live up time of traditional trauma. You only have to my expectations. It did. The man in 'The Man in think about the Shed' is not blessed with turkey for that – once upon a name. His name (whatever time it was leaving it is) is not important or relevant sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the talehair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. ItNowadays it's all about ''why'' hehaving to make sure it's in the shed in the first placesuitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. This particular shed's in Christmas, though, is of course also a garden time of a house inhabited by a family which includes the young narratorgreat boons. It's pretty clear that the marriage is going through cash in hand for a rocky patch right now. So lot of plump people whocan hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you could reasonably wonder, is the odd one letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out here in long- hand as a child, and as for the husband or the man in the shed. Jones tells us in his own way. He's a writer who catches your attention earlymakers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, or he did in my case. No fancy statements or lazy cliches but good old plain English but with flair.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544820</amazonuk>they even try and sell them any other time of the year?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith Hermann0954899520|title=AliceA Winter Book|author=Tove 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>
}}
 {{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>
}}
 {{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>
}}
 {{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 has a busy life, leaving you feeling provenance at least as beguiling as if you've lived through a whole story in just a short space the provenance of timethe antique watches that inspired it. 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 Philip Neal lost a new bookwatch. I am It was a big fan watch he was fond of her crispand had been told was like a 1930s Cartier. Instead of mourning its loss, funny, observant short storieshe began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. So I picked up And that'In Flight Entertainment' with some anticipations how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. I The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not disappointedand the seed of an idea for a book was born.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546124</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E Flannery1529006031|title=Toby's Little EdenReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors|rating=34.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=John E FlanneryIn following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a few years ago, when the first book she was in [[Alice's debut collection contains four short stories Adventures in Wonderland (although one is more of a novella150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and a series Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of amusing sketches about the ground staff at a new Golf Course in north Manchesterage]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. They're more varied than they might appear at first glance and demonstrate Flannery's ability to get straight to The wacky-for-the heart -sake-of the story without wasting words -it did not gel, and to develop character I don't remember loving it more as economically as possible, whilst still holding the reader's imaginationa child. But I knew as soon as would suggest I began ''The Ghostwriter'' that am the perfect audience for this book. I wasn't going had every chance to be disappointed as enjoy these short stories that come at the core from a man who has written successful thrillers is possessed by tangent, that show the spirit benefits of Charles Dickensthe oblique glance. ItI've always preferred coming to an author's a neat riff on John Braineoutput through their least obvious, allegedly throw-away pieces, and it's idea that novelist wait the same with franchises – I'd more likely go for an idea to descend on them and Graham GreeneBree Tanner's belief short novella than the whole Twilight saga (although that novelists are like mediumsremains just a hunch, for obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445777940</amazonuk> 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?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy Parker1846974658|title=The SexesLong Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating=54
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=From On my travels around the young woman who examined her handkerchief in minute detailworld, I have a tendency to the soldier's leave which didn't live end up to expectationin any bookshop that is selling English-language books, through and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the thoughts of next person, what I'm really looking for is the early hours of 'local' – the morning to cookbook maybe, the actress who proved a disappointment to her fan and on to the glorious culmination of maps definitely, but above all: the child who should never have been called Lolita we have five wonderful short storiesfolk tales. TheyIf I ever get to Burma, I won're in a book that's no bigger than most short stories but buy it and it could well be the best buy that you make this yeart need to hunt, I can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014119619X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aidan ChambersB077969HN8|title=The Kissing GameAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=You don't see that many short story collections in YA circles. But when they do appear, you often wonder why there aren't more of them. And this is absolutely the case with The Kissing Game. Ranging from short pieces of flash fiction to "proper" short stories, each one will incite, surprise and stimulate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370331974</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=William Styron
|title=The Suicide Run
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''Alternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving and leavingtwist of surrealism''. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as he rests up before action. And for I'm not normally a highly-charged young manfan of either, there may be too much risk but I've come to be found in his hightwo conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct -octane downtimeand I really enjoyed it.|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 comedy is the little village of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets not ''too'' black and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during the war (which might, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique surrealism is gentle and nearly beautiful perhaps best described as the village is, a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the people who live in Vernhamnicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady9386897504|title=The Lost Stories Tales of Sherlock HolmesLove and Disability|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged I've always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a successful detective character will have far too many cases in his career for it great deal of skill and talent to be at all realistic. The worst case in point are write a short story which holds the Hardy Boys, who have had two hundred or reader and keeps them coming back for more adventures and are still not 20. Slightly more literary, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmes, for Watson declaimed There are far too many times that he did not write collections of short stories which are all too easy to put down all that manand forget after you's exploitsve read a couple of pieces. Tony Reynolds here gives us eight more casesI've recently read a couple of novellas by Laura Solomon - [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon|Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, making Holmes' workload so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even more impressiveshorter form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685618</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Samson1986586898|title=Perfect LivesGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The eleven short stories in Perfect Lives are about In the opening story, a group of people living 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 English seaside town. Each story owner struggles with the problem of challenged relationships, devastating discoveries and objects and people with a history is carefully and beautifully crafted, stands alone and works well whether or not to run his horse in its own right, but the connections between all Gold Cup when the stories offer an extra, fascinating dimensionground is against him. Each story made me want to look at the others again to understand how they all connect My favourite was ''The Story of H'', to piece together the different bits story of Foinavon. H is depicted as a kind horse who only wanted to please people's lives in each story. This format also offers an opportunity After changing hands on various occasions he came to see some of the characters from several different perspectives, and perhaps make the short stories more satisfying to those who are dissatisfied by their brevity, as some yard of the same characters reappear, so offering some of the advantages of the novel while staying in the short story formJohn Kempton. There are four stories told H (or Foinavon) was entered in the first person by an unnamed woman who is married with two young sons, Grand National and then considered a no-hoper. In one of her sons has a story the most dramatic runnings of his own (Ivan Knows). There are a variety of narrative viewpoints – women, menthe race, a little boypile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. Foinavon, a teenage girlwho had been many lengths adrift, first cleared the fence and third persongalloped to the line, winning the race at odds of 100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1860499929</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shena Mackay9386897296|title=The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected StoriesHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon|rating=43.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This volume 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 short storiesa spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', first published in 2008 but new the devil is not one to 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 paperbackHell). Although a strong person, has she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a lot crime he didn't commit and sent to offer those familiar juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Shena MackayMarsha. Then, of course, there are all the other children who are not only targeted but - worst of all - subverted to the devil's previous work evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and readers coming to her stories for the first timeweaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, with a generous thirty six stories either - thirteen recent stories collected in book form for the first time are combined devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with twenty three from Shena Mackay's previous collectionsan elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099469677</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Sheila O'Flanagan|title=A Season Move to Remember|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We first meet the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating [[Newest Spirituality and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'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 the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Mortimer|title=Rumpole at Christmas|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=This book is as slim as one of Rumpole's beloved packets of cigars and it can also be read in the time it takes an average turkey to cook in the oven on Christmas Day. A handful of festive, short stories is covered in this book with its appealing front cover. Most of the stories have been previously published elsewhere, mainly in 'The Strand Magazine' but also in some of the national newspapers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039779</amazonuk>}}Religion Reviews]]

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