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[[Category:New Reviews|Short Stories]]
[[Category:Short Stories|*]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike HenleyAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=One Dog and His Man|rating=4|genre=Pets|summary=Oberon is a Labrador with a pedigree as long as your arm and ''One Dog and His Man'' is his story about what itAll Tomorrow's like living with the man he generously refers to as ''The Boss'', about life in general and the ways of the world. Think of him as the canine equivalent of the parliamentary sketch writer, there to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human life and bring a gentle humour to situations which might otherwise be taken far too seriously. Before you wonder how this is possible - how a dog can write a book - let me remind you Futures: Fictions that dogs are very intelligent animals. After all, dogs and their humans might go to what are laughingly called 'dog training classes', but it's the humans who are trained, not the dogs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471660354</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisrupt|author=Joseph O'Connor|title=Where Have You Been?Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Irish novelist Joseph O'Connor has had quite a 2012. Earlier in the year he joined the ranks of such authors as Edna O'Brien, [[:Category:Roddy Doyle|Roddy Doyle]] and Seamus Heaney when he became a recipient Opening up new ways of thinking about the PEN award for his outstanding contribution shape of things to Irish literature. What could possibly top that for a sense of achievement? Well this, his first book of short stories in 20 years, must come pretty close to at least equalling it, amply illustrating the reasons for the panel's decision.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846556899</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anita Desai|title=The Artist of Disappearance|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist of Disappearance'' is a collection of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, all involve some looking back in time and all three involve some consideration of the creative art - who it is for, what happens to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' it. Most of all, each one is beautifully written, with strong characters and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional length.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gerry WellsB0CDZRGT1M|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=WWII books about the RAF and the Navy are quite common. Books about Special Operations Executive and similar organisations proliferate. Stories about the army are fewer and try as I might I really couldn't think of one which was other than incidentally about tank crew'Got a minute to be amused, entertained, so when the opportunity came I or challenged?''had'' to These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.'Kicking the Hornets' Nest' particularly as it's written by an author who crewed a Sherman tank in Operation Overlord, back in June 1944Some are funny. I had just a couple of nagging doubtsSome are poignant. It's a book of All are short stories. Would I find it easy to pick up - and out down again? The big worry was whether or not this was going to be a macho action story, which wouldn't really be my cup of tea at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780881568</amazonuk>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francis BennettRachel Harrison|title=The Crabber StoriesBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber - 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 nickname which he once earned boy I fancied at school and which then stuck - and he grew up on scaring myself half silly with them to the shores point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of Long Island in the nineteenvampires outside! Don't worry -fifties. this short story collection isn't like that! It was a close-knit community doesn't have those jump scares, and a time when children had more freedom than they are likely I didn't have to be allowed now. read it during daylight hours only! We watch But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as Crabber grows from being a boy still suffering from the death of his elder brother when we first met him through to breakup, trying a time when he's old enough new dieting app, going to go on a hunting trip on the mainland with hen party and a local family. He tells his own stories, as truthfully as he can and coping with the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicismgrief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>1803363932
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie Tillotson and Penny ThomasB0CCCVRSGX|title=All Shall be Well|rating=4.5|genre=Anthologies|summary=Twenty five years - a quarter of a century - is a long time. 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 achieved. To celebrate the occasion they've published this anthology of twenty five 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=Stories 2|genre=Short Stories|summary=''The Infernal Republic'' is a collection 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 to who publishes the books I read, but in this case I'm making an exception because I can't honestly believe that any traditional publisher would have put out this book in this form. The whole collection is so badly crying out for a good editor that it actually ended up making me angry in places.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881516404</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marc Nash|title=52FFRichard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=52FF This is a collection Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories in the flash fiction format. If you're new to flash fiction, you should know there are various definitions but here, Marc Nash chooses a format of under 1,000 words. This gives him some leeway and so the pieces There are thirteen in a wide variety of styles - some experimental - but all and I took something from each of them exploring . There isn't a single central metaphor and all with a darkness one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about them which is sometimes explicit and sometimes only emerges after you've had time to I think and digestthey give a general flavour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005IHMZR6</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Etgar KeretB09XZMCDVF|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door Stories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=In ''A news vendor is crying out the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people to create, and alter, headlines in the middle of the night; a short short story. It's wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a plain metaphor stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the original. And what follows are probably new boy on the sort of short, tantalising, open-endedpub football team is very useful with his feet, rough-round-the-edges and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>}}awfully familiar…''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela Carter1737030942|title=Burning Your BoatsBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating=54|genre=Short StoriesAnthologies|summary=Sometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's 'Burning your Boats' brings together CarterBag O's early works and her uncollected short stories, alongside the collections Goodies'Fireworks'. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Right now, I didn'The Bloody Chamber't want a full-length novel, 'Black Venus' so I turned to this anthology of verse and 'American Ghosts'short stories. CarterBittick's ability to take the everyday writing has matured - and transform it into the fantastic is evident in stories that range from a cautionary tale of a musician in love with so have his instrument to a lost motorist whose journey ends in nightmarish circumstances in the Snow Pavilioncharacters. Well...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592916</amazonuk>most of them!
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|rating=4
|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>
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{{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>
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{{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>}}''
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{{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?
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{{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
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{{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?
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{{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>
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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 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>}}
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{{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?
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{{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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aidan ChambersB077969HN8|title=The Kissing GameAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon
|rating=4.5
|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 twist of surrealism''. I'm rather glad that I didn't see this until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartialsfan of either, is forced but I've come to wonder if he two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is winning his own battles against those arriving correct - and leavingI really enjoyed it. A soldier remembers calming memories, The comedy is not ''too'' black and the surrealism is gentle and those causing tension, perhaps best described as he rests up before actiona twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. And for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk Your comfort zones are going to be found invaded in his high-octane downtimethe nicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Saunders9386897504|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village Tales of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets Love 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 and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisability|author=John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady|title=The Lost Stories of Sherlock HolmesLaura 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>
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{{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>
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