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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Higgins ClarkAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Death Wears a Beauty MaskAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=In 1972, Mary Higgins Clark began writing a novella entitled ''Death Wears 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 Beauty Maskfew decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I' She struggled m left with the story and put feeling that it aside, where 's all getting away from me. Some of it lay forgotton for several decadesis - frankly - quite frightening. When Of course, I could research the author rediscovered possibilities and the manuscript amongst some old files, she decided that she liked it probabilities and was ready to complete end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the long-awaited endinglatest conspiracy theorist. ''Death Wears a Beauty Mask'' joins some of her other works, both old I needed people I knew I could trust and new, who could deliver information in an entertaining collection of short stories full of mystery and suspensea way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471143228</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danielle McLaughlinB0CDZRGT1M|title=Dinosaurs on Other PlanetsSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch

|genre=Short Stories |summary=Seeing as this book is clearly ''Got a talented author hitting the ground runningminute to be amused, entertained, I will dispense with any major preamble. We start with a tale of a daughter affected by the emotions of her parents as they separate – and the influence of a certain school-teacher – from the motheror challenged?''''s point of viewThese 100 stories are super short. An ancient input shows how alien, and the modern day domesticity how regular, the isolation of a woman can feel, as events are peppered by minor acts of destructionNone is more than 300 words. But men You can be alienated too – especially read one, in a reluctant guest at a party for children hosted by someone he once had an affair with – he feels the new form of this influence in the light of another one he has had to try and abandonflash. ''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All About Aliceare short.' – that's what the title character wants to say but has nobody to speak it to, but is it her – mid-40s and single, living with her father –  Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is most removed told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from her dreams or her old friend and now child factory, Marianall the flash fictions in a book of them? And I don't know! Perhaps we complete could start by explaining that there really isn't a lap of the calendar with the wintry tale fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a man unable to tell his work superiors of the problems he faces at home – three hundred word limit. That's about a new home, recently built like so many one sees while driving round Irelandsingle page in your average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613701</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Christopher FowlerRachel Harrison|title= Bryant and May - London's GloryBad Dolls|rating= 4|genre= CrimeShort Stories|summary=In the depths It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the last [[Bryant books from a boy I fancied at school and May – The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler|B&M review scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I wrote]] I said couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn' Of course, itt like that! It doesn's unbelievablet have those jump scares, farcical. But then you donand I didn't come have to a Bryant and May story for realism. read it during daylight hours only! You come for absurdity.'' NaturallyBut it is creepy, and I stand by found most of that comment. Fowler has concocted his characters feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and has no shame that at least in shunting them up and down part, the time-line of British history horrors arises from very normal situations such as he sees fita breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857523457</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0CCCVRSGX|title=Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Sometimes, if I'm in a cafe by myself, I like to watch the people around me and imagine stories about their lives. Just a single sentence, overheard, can lead to wonderous tales of mystery and intrigue whilst I sip my cappuccino! So I was delighted to sit down to read the latest offering from AMS, not only because he wrote it, but because he wrote it after looking at 5 different black and white photographs, and then imagining the stories behind them. Who are all these people, and what are their stories? Each story is unique, and yet they all have one abiding link...love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973295</amazonuk>}}{{newreview2|author=Joannah Yacoub|title=When Mr Putin Stole My Painting: Ten Short StoriesRichard F Walker|rating=3.54

|summary=Put yourself, if necessary, in the mind of someone wanting to publish their first collection This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. What do you choose as the contents – besides just saying the best available? Do you try There are thirteen in all and find I took something from each of them. There isn't a theme, single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or connecting happenstance or stylebrings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to pin them together? Are talk about and I think they based on you now, someone else somewhen else, or all the diverse people and places you have once met? Joannah Yacoub seems to have gone for the lattergive a general flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373971</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eoin Colfer (editor)1739593901|title=Once Upon a Place22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers Science Fiction|summary=You know the bit ''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of the blurb on every flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''Artemis Fowl I've got a couple of confessions to make. I' m not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book, where Eoin Colfer had it said about how you pronounce his name? . That wasnThere't the intention of an up-and-coming author s got to be recognisable; rather, it was pridea very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Pride in Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the difference of it, of technology which takes centre stage along with the Irishness of itworld-building. Ireland, it seems to It's human beings who fascinate me, is more full than usual of people, things : the technology and ideas, and places that the world scape are different by dint of their singular nationality – and so many deserve to have pride attached to thempurely incidental. The places might not be the famous onesSo, but they can be the source what did I think of pride, and a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, which is where this compilation of short works for the young comes in, with the authors invited to select their chosen place and write about I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191041137X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie HannahB09XZMCDVF|title=The Visitors Book|rating=3.5|genre=Paranormal|summary= Sophie Hannah's The Visitors Book is a short anthology of modern stories with a supernatural twist. There is not a hammy gothic turret in sight as her characters experience their mundane, day-to-day, 21st century business -- a children's birthday party, a visit to a boyfriend, neck pain, the school run. Now, ghost stories based on ordinary people leading ordinary lives can be very unsettling indeed, making overly imaginative readers look over their shoulder at the bus stop, or giving them goosebumps for no apparent reason. So I was curious to see what Sophie Hannah, a writer I much admire, would make of this particular material.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745525</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewStories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Marina Warner|title=Fly Away HomeRichard F Walker|rating=34

|summary=How would you subvert a fairy tale? You know enough ''A news vendor is crying out the headlines in the middle of them and enough about them to do it, so think on it. Would you give a mermaid the night; a smartphone? Would you pepper them wheelchair user loses touch with pop stars, and perhaps let them be witness to the Schadenfreude caused by a cave that's sacred to native Canadians? Would you, reality when he tries walking around in the light of their characters usually being routine, interchangeable tropes, give them his imagination; a closely-observed personality – as seen here stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher's interior thoughts when faced with proves the ideal person to have around in a piece of East Anglian lore? Would you take lawless village; the exoticism of new boy on the eastpub football team is very useful with his feet, and Egypt in particular, and see it in the light awfully familiar…'' This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a musical teacher on a zero-hours contract who ends up muttering lot to himself, directing traffic in offer the middle of eclectic reader. Tying them together is the roadidea that remarkable and strange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or from the remove uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of an elderly man with short fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what'swollen feet in orthopaedic sandals'' with a message from the past? Certainly these two are not the standard Arabian Nights-styled pieces…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630381</amazonuk>s coming next.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rose Tremain1737030942|title= The American Lover|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories |summary= Having never read a Rose Tremain book before, I was interested to start this collection of short stories. I wasnBag O't disappointed, and it quickly became clear why she has won so many literary awards for her work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548445</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewGoodies|author= Ursula K Le Guin|title= The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Compass RoseJolly Walker Bittick|rating= 4|genre= Science FictionAnthologies|summary=ISometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''ll start by saying that . I think the SF Masterworks series are pretty much always and without fail first encountered his writing about a really interesting year ago, when I read. I've bought quite his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]], a few from this publisher now and I rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find they will always pick interesting titles from the science fiction genre, making them a great place to start if you are either just dipping your toe into science fiction base for the first time or if you're looking to build up your collectiontheir partying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320576X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Maeve Binchy|title= A Few of the Girls|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories|summary= Right now, I was excited about reviewing didn't want a brand new collection full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of Maeve Binchy verse and short stories . Bittick's writing has matured - and I wasn't disappointedso have his characters. As her widower states in the introduction, Binchy had an extraordinary talent for telling powerful and compassionate stories, and was a true storyteller with an amazing outputWell... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409161412</amazonuk>most of them!

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ann Cleeves (editor)1529418100|title=The Starlings Bruno's Challenge and Other StoriesDordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker

|summary= I chose to review this collection 'm not usually a fan of short stories with no prior knowledge - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to 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 authortemptation to read ''Bruno's work – often the best way Challenge'' was hard to do it, though resist and I am aware 'm rather glad that McCrackenI didn's work comes highly commendedt even try. After reading these stories For those new to the series, I can see why there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and I am already looking forward the background to reading more of her workwhy Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592975</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Pete BellotteB08NF79QXT|title= The Unround CircleCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating= 2.53|genre= Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary= As short story collections goThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, this is a fairly ambitious bundlethe Cherry Blossom Boutique, some 22 stories running to a total of nearly four hundred pagesfor just six months when she's nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. YouShe'll gather from s delighted and the fact that Itwo people she'm starting s brought with her to the statistics that I didnevent couldn't instantly fall in love with Bellottebe more pleased. Sonja, her mother, is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her looks from. Jessica's thirty-four and Liberty's best friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's writinghusband, Charles and their four-year-old daughter, Ava. Life would be perfect for Liberty if it wasn't for one thing: she misses having a man in her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910533092</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mary Higgins Clark (editor)B08KKQ85FN|title= Manhattan Mayhem – New Crime Stories from the Mystery Writers of America|rating= 5|genre= Crime|summary= I was unsure how to open this review. I heart Manhattan, big time. I am always attracted to any work set in Manhattan, but I don’t want to pigeonhole this remarkable collection of stories into a slot that says 'only for Manhattan lovers'. Far from it – it is a superb collection featuring the highest standards of both mystery writing and the form of short story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474761X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewBut Never For Lunch|author=Ivan Vladislavic|title=101 Detectives|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=101 Detectives had me baffled. The book comprises of a collection of stories which explore multiple themes from the perspective of one person. The stories are as varied as the characters presenting the tale to you. This exquisitely written book leaves you asking many questions and pondering many ideas. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276568</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Laurie R King and Leslie Klinger (editors)|title=In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes CanonSandra Aragona

|summary=Well, that's one way 'If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to get a heck of Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a lot of attention pampered peacock about to your series be released into the company of short story collectionscarrion crows or, for sure – get the estate of the author you're respecting to take you more to court with the idea that the works cannot be published – the characters are so firmly established and entrenchedpoint, but established and entrenched as their property and therefore cannot be artistically reinterpreted, revived or otherwise returned about to at all until full discover the real world of bus timetables and final copyright statutes have expiredpaying his own gas bills. '' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? Never mind that the characters – one S Holmes We first met His Excellency and Dr JH Watson – hardly have parallels The Ambassador's Wife in how often they already have been mimicked. Never mind [[Sorting the fact that Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the estate of Conan Doyle Priorities]] and we learned what it was paid off in order like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for the first book Sandra Aragona to releasedbecome The Wife of Former Ambassador... Still, the case was won They have left The Career and this sequel is settled in our handsRome. Is it worth all Well 'settled' rather overstates the legal documents? What is the important verdictsituation and their dog, Beagle, at the end has no intention of the reading day?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329843X</amazonuk>slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessie Greengrass B08CHJLNBS|title=An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams

|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=The title storyHe's Charles Devereaux, which appears firstthirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, is exactly what it says on the tin: one hunterMayfair letting agents. She's story of travelling to remote islands to take part Emilia, twenty-nine, librarian and archivist in massive culls of great auks, until they were simply gonethe heritage library next door. It Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's always hard to believe moved on from new age books like that species that once numbered in their millions, such as the passenger pigeonwhich leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, could go extinct so quickly, but when you read about the brutal slaughter tactics here – swinging clubs and boiling birds alive – you can see how to something a flightless bird was little deeper. Charles is more of a sitting target. The narrator makes no real attempt to defend [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself: the birds were there for the taking; that was , but, above all, he's shocked thatEmilia reads ''The Guardian''. Still They're obviously not at all compatible, he regrets their extinction, because 'in any loss you so why can see a shadow Charles not get this woman out of the way that you will be lost yourself.his mind? She' (Those interested in the great auks not his usual type at all: it's extinction may also want obvious to read the 2013 novel 'his friends. And given that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The Collector of Lost Thingsrelationship's obviously a non-starter, isn' by Jeremy Page.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610850</amazonuk>t it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin BarrettMarie O'Regan and Paul Kane (editors)|title=Young SkinsCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary=WeCurses. They're taken into the lives there throughout tales of faery and other fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to do that. Children can be cursed, as can princesses on the youthful inhabitants verge of small town Ireland marrying, and older people too. It seems in seven short stories of differing styles but a shared settingway there's no escaping it. Barrett writes Which is why the theme of this book of short stories is such a doorman at a suburban nightclub, known and respected by standout – we may well think we know all the locals, although we only read there is to know about a brief affair and his vulnerability. Another tale portrays a young rocker and his emotional statethis accursed character, years after an incident that scarred him both physically demonised place, and mentally and made him the talk of the townthat other bewitched person. Other tales all share the same focus on people and small but meaningful personal events in their livesWe'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009959742X</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B ReidStibbe_Xmas|title=Beyond the Trees of Gulavstadt: A Gothic Short StoryAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Amy works Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for Claralinguathat – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, a London education company and if that runs English schools failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all over the worldhaving to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and Amy is travelling get too friendly with it to want to Gulavstadteat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a remote town in Eastern Europe, to inspect one time of the schoolsgreat boons. Gulavstadt is It's cash in hand for a town lot of myths plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the setting of thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a recent horror filmchild, ''The Thing Behind and as for the Trees''makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, exploiting did they even try and sell them - featuring medieval, flesh-eating ghouls with mouths lined with any other time of the sharpest of teeth. But myths don't bother Amy...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00U9I7KNI</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors0954899520|title=Karate Chop, and Minna Needs Rehearsal SpaceA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=The reviewer picks up Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the book.<br>The book is called ''Minna Needs Rehearsal Space''.<br>The book is entirely made out Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of one-sentence paragraphs.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs are very seldom poetic, but normally are grammatically correct sentences.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs on the whole have just one verbsimplicity, unless regarding naivety and sheer 'goodness' that from reported would later produce flowerpot men or unreported speechteletubbies.<br>The book concerns a middle-aged musician and composer who does indeed need rehearsal spaceSimple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness.<br>The book concerns What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a woman who suddenly gets more space than serious writer…that she wants when her boyfriend leaves her.<br>The boyfriend's departure causes wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a lot of people crowding around Minna, which causes a problem.<br>The problem might be resolved by a trip away from her city flat.<br>The title feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the book world might be ironic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271198</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malorie Blackman1911115847|title=Love HurtsNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=''Love HurtsNights of the Creaking Bed'' is all about heartache but it doesn't leave you berefta collection of short stories by Toni Kan. Mixed in are enough moments The series of stories tell of heartsease (the lives and heart's joy!) to keep you believing lusts of an assortment of characters living in loveand around Lagos, Nigeria. And we all want to believe Nigeria, in lovethis collection, don't we? If you are one is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the few who don't, you might as well look away now. The rest of us shadows and people are in killed for nothing more than a treatwrong look. This anthology has been gathered together by Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman, one of our favourite YA authors here at Bookbag, Kan writes with a vitality and certainly one who understands exactly how passion that allows these cynical stories to write about the highs and lows achieve a glimmer of love as it is experienced by young peoplehope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552573973</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Robertson1529014484|title=WallflowersExhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Eliza Robertson won Over the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize while completing her MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. ''Wallflowers'' is already a bestseller in Robertson's native Canada. There is quite some variety across the seventeen past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories. Broadly speaking, though, there these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a few themes: moving on from loss, finding love in the midst science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of gentle madness, and interactions with the natural world, often on the edge of Canadawork by Ted Chiang. If you haven's British Columbia wildernesst then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408856794</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edith Pearlman1794467440|title=HoneydewWatchwords |author=Philip Neal

|summary=American This satisfying collection of short story writer [[:Category:Edith Pearlman|Edith Pearlman]] brings us stories has a compilation provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of stories the antique watches that have only inspired it. Philip Neal lost a watch. It was a watch he was fond of and had been seen separately in magazines over the yearstold was like a 1930s Cartier. This follows on from the huge success Instead of mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that''Binocular Vision'' (s how he became a watch collector. An eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in 2013)Clerkenwell. The eBay purchase was a fake, but the short story collection friendship that led to Ms Pearlman being presented with grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the National Critics' Circle Awardseed of an idea for a book was born. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444797018</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Charteris and John Telfer (narrator)1529006031|title=Enter the SaintReturn to Wonderland|author=Various Authors

|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=When you think of thrillers written by In following a young girl called Alice down the rabbit hole a man few years ago, when the first book she was in his early twenties there[[Alice's a temptation to believe Adventures in Wonderland (150th Anniversary Edition) by Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne|hit 150 years of age]], I found that I didn't really find too much favour with it. The wacky-for-the books might -sake-of-it did not begel, well, top drawer, but that would be and I don't remember loving it more as a mistakechild. The first of ''The Saint'' novels was published in 1928 when Leslie Charteris was just twenty one and But I would suggest I am the perfect audience for this collection of stories is dated 1930book. You might expect I had every chance to enjoy these short stories that come at the rambunctious adventurer we meetcore from a tangent, but not that show the subtleties benefits of the slightly worldoblique glance. I've always preferred coming to an author's output through their least obvious, allegedly throw-weary man of the worldaway pieces, all-knowing about the evils to which men (and women) can sink, but theyit're all there. Admittedly s the Saint is same with franchises – I'd more boisterous and less subtle likely go for Bree Tanner's short novella than he will become - but the whole Twilight saga (although that speaks more about the later works than this bookremains just a hunch, for obvious reasons).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OS74GQU</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=J Robert Lennon1846974658|title=See You In ParadiseThe Long Path To Wisdom|author=Jan-Philipp Sendker|rating=34

|summary=Lennon writes with On my travels around the world, I have a relaxedtendency to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as people from everyday walks of life, without being in any way stereotypical. Many of the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrationsnext person, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that youwhat I're obviously supposed to root m really looking for (the only exception is the industrialist in the eponymous tale, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat). There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head'local'– the cookbook maybe, for examplethe maps definitely, but above all: the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed folk tales. If I ever get to be unreliable and unfair. For meBurma, the most unsettling story is I won''No Life'', because it portrays a decent couple at the mercy of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work heret need to hunt, just ordinary characters at the mercy of social powerI can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca LeeB077969HN8|title=Bobcat and Other StoriesAlternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon|rating=34.5

|summary=The first story Laura Solomon's publisher describes the short stories in ''BobcatAlternative Medicine'' as ''black comedy with a twist of surrealism''. I'm rather glad that I didn' is the title story, and t see this alone is worth the price until ''after'' I'd finished reading as I'm not normally a fan of admission. Plaster it with prizeseither, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade but I've come to two conclusions about the book: what the publisher says is correct - and I really enjoyed it can get. However, the last story echoes the first, The comedy is not ''too'' black and the five tales in between are strangely repetitive, most with Midwestern North American narrators surrealism is gentle and 1980s university settingsperhaps best described as a twist or flick of reality when you were least expecting it. Moreover, all seven Your comfort zones are going to be invaded in the first-person; I would have appreciated more variety of perspectivenicest possible way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kelley Armstrong9386897504|title=Otherworld NightsTales of Love and Disability|author=Laura Solomon

|genre=ParanormalShort Stories|summary=Kelley Armstrong revisits her hugely popular I'Otherworld' series in this collection ve always believed that less-able writers produce longer books: it takes a great deal of skill and talent to write a short story which holds the reader and keeps them coming back for more. There are far too many collections of short stories, featuring many which are all too easy to put down and forget after you've read a couple of the prominent characters from the seriespieces. I'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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500667</amazonuk>Hell's Unveiling]] and enjoyed them, so I was intrigued to see what she could do with an even shorter form.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Ince and Johnny Mains (editors)1986586898|title=Dead FunnyGoing To The Last: Short Stories About Horse Racing|author=K D Knight

|genre=HorrorShort Stories|summary=In the opening story, a world of nightmares, disasters, death man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and ignominy there is a book called his wife. In ''Dead FunnyA Grey Day''. Invented purely an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not to satisfy run his horse in the Gold Cup when the remit built into its title, it collects some horror stories written by comedians, both household names and those more up-and-comingground is against him. Like all horror books it comes out at the time My favourite was ''The Story of year best suited for horror – Halloween, when we read with the darkest corners in our roomsH'', with the longest evenings outside – but is only suited for Halloween because it is a worthless, hellish piece story of drossFoinavon. It never excites, it H is the most self-serving vanity project, and the depicted as a kind horse who only funny thing about it is that some idiot ever decided it was worth publishingwanted to please people. Now I know you know, courtesy After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of those bright shiny stars alongside this review, that this volume, Dead Funny, is not ''that'' Dead FunnyJohn Kempton. But just bear H (or Foinavon) was entered in mind the horror story this could have beenGrand National and considered a no-hoper. In one of the most dramatic runnings of the race, if these pages were not so surprisingly adept a pile-up occurred at taking those said nightmaresthe 23rd fence. Foinavon, disasterswho had been many lengths adrift, deaths and ignominy cleared the fence and presenting them galloped to us so competentlythe line, winning the race at odds of 100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773762</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou9386897296|title=Black Greek CoffeeHell's Unveiling|author=Laura Solomon|rating=43.5

|summary=If your experience of Greece is as a tourist then youA little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha'll almost certainly think of it in terms of historys Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, mythology and startlingly white buildings against sapphire blue sky and sea''Hell's Unveiling''. It looks idyllic, but there's probably not much of a darker side spoiler to Greek life, explored by Konstantina Souzou-Kyrkou, say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Black Greek CoffeeMarsha's Deal'' - a neat metaphor for the lives she looks at: sharp, bitter but ultimately addictivethe devil is not one to take defeat lying down. In twenty three short stories she illuminates the chauvinism He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and superstition, the concepts particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes'honourin Hell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn' t commit and sent to juvenile detention and the status refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then, of womencourse, there are all the dominance other children who are not only targeted but - worst of religion and all - subverted to the lives led by devil's evil ends. He'ordinary'' peoples out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. They sound like grand themesThis is no small-scale operation, but the stories are grounded in domesticity and there will be few people - in any country either - who have not been touched by one of the problemsdevil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Hell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784620351</amazonuk>