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[[Category:Short Stories|*]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjon Hodgkinson Guadalupe Nettel and Ten Hodgkinson Rosalind Harvey (editorsTranslator)|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the NorthAccidentals|rating=34.5|genre=Anthologies Short Stories|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in timethe word: spellbinding with its fantastical, as some were written the year of publication magical elements and some charming in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set its gentle portrayal of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes nature and other island groups, or Greenlandhuman relationships. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and the Iraqi blood on these pagesprecisely, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life her stories structured by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than wisdom that changes – sometimes it seems appears to be even want to teach us something about the characters' species…world.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>1804271470

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Laura SolomonMariana Enriquez|title=Taking WainuiA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=25|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary= This Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is the first time I have come across Laura Solomon's workdisturbingly real, a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her fiction settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and poetrya crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. Although this book appears to be The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a collection of short stories, I found its format somewhat confusingsimilarly tangible texture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk>1803511230

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kenneth StevenFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=Winter TalesWhite Nights|rating=45

|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winter. You are taken around the world as you read stories set As always in a variety of places from Helsinki to New YorkDostoyevsky, Germany to Russiathe character work is sublime. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises One is never left wondering what a key component of short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subject, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading a distinct story every time you open the bookcharacter is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910674508</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= FearAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=Do ''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 enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahl're eighteen. Well, these terrible tales I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of ghostly goingstechnology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly -on will have you shivering with fear as you turn quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the pageslatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933216</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB0CDZRGT1M|title= WarSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating= 4.5|genre= Short Stories|summary=In war''Got a minute to be amused, entertained, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worstchallenged? Featuring the autobiographical ''''These 100 stories from Roald Dahlare super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.''s time as  Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fighter pilot fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the Second World War as well as seven other tales flash fictions in a book of conflict and strifethem? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activityauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperback.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Roald DahlRachel Harrison|title= TrickeryBad Dolls|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=How underhand could you be to get what you want? In these ten tales It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of dark misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and twisted trickery Roald Dahl reveals scaring myself half silly with them to the point that we are I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at our smartest and most cunning when we set out to deceive others night for fear of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and, sometimes, even ourselves. Here, among others, youI didn'll t have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the married couple fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the parting gift which rocks their marriagehorrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, the light fingered hitch-hiker and the grateful motoristtrying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and discover why the serious poacher keeps a few sleeping pills in his arsenalcoping with grief.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405933232</amazonuk>1803363932

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald DahlB0CCCVRSGX|title= InnocenceStories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating= 54|genre= Short Stories|summary=What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling of Roald DahlThis is Richard F Walker's boyhood second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and youth as well as four further tales I took something from each of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the joys and horrors of growing upoverall quality. Among other It can be tricky to review short storieswithout giving too much away, youso I'll read just pick two to talk about the wager that destroys a girl's faith in her father, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who is horrified to discover that I think they give a fellow passenger once bullied him at schoolgeneral flavour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933259</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman1739593901|title=Some of Us Glow More Than Others22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Science Fiction|summary=I won't 'Our future will be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardmore complex than we expected. Going through from AInstead of flying cars, we got night-Z, witnessing vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' I've got a bounty couple of ideas and characters in confessions to make. I'm not keen on short order can be too much, but do you have the right stories as I find it easy to pick read a few stories and choose according then forget to what appeals, and what time you have return to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surelythe book. Such would appear There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the case hereworld-building. The last time I read one of this authorIt's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], human beings who fascinate me: the only real difficulty was holding back technology and rationing themthe world scape are purely incidental. So, but here you not only get what did I think of a whopping forty pieces book of writingtwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, they are also spread into sectionsI loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB09XZMCDVF|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories: 13 tantalising tales|author=Richard F Walker|rating=3.54|genre=Short Stories |summary=This ''A news vendor is crying out the ninth book of short stories by this author, which means he's presented just as many collections headlines in the middle of the short form as night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he has novels. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for longer works (what with [[How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who is so generous correct grammar goes back in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, or those like me who see to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the variety ideal person to have around in a writerlawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…''s  This collection of thirteen short or less typical works stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to be offer the more interesting places to turneclectic reader. Opening these pagesTying them together is the idea that remarkable and strange, from the pen of such an esteemed proeven miraculous, came with no small sense things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of anticipationshort fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Various Authors1737030942|title= A Change Is Gonna ComeBag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker Bittick|rating= 54|genre= TeensAnthologies|summary= Sometimes, you deserve a treat and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's 'A Change Is Gonna Come'Bag O' is an Goodies''. 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't want a full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short stories and poems interpreting the theme of change by twelve BAME writers. It Bittick's Stripes Publishing's response to the underwriting has matured -representation of BAME authors in the UKand so have his characters. Well.. And it's a great response.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847158390</amazonuk>most of them!

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen Stancey1529418100|title= The Madonna of the PoolBruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin Walker|rating= 3.54|genre= Short Stories|summary= In most short story collections, an overarching theme is I'm not usually present in each a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the narratives which help each story gently flow 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 temptation to the nextread ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even try. In this debut collection Helen Stancey explores For those new to the quiet disappointmentsseries, achievements, and complications there's an excellent introduction that each of us experience through everyday life. She draws attention will tell you all you need to the small events and decisions that can both disrupt know about who's who and significantly alter the lives of others and ourselves, all while maintaining a delicately poetic tone throughoutbackground to why Bruno is in St Denis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1912054000</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna WalshB08NF79QXT|title=Worlds from the Word's EndCherry Blossom Boutique|author=Brooke Adams|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesWomen's Fiction|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this authorThirty-one-year old Liberty Rossini has had her shop, the Cherry Blossom Boutique, for just six months when she's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]nominated for - and wins - the Retail Best Newcomer Award. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes from one characterShe's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators delighted and a host the two people she's brought with her to the event couldn't be more, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent beforepleased. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of Sonja, her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] seriesmother, I was intrigued by is an ex-model and Brazilian: you can see where Liberty got her name being stamped on a selection of shortslooks from. Was it the ideal calling card? LetJessica's thirty-four and Liberty's face it, the very short story itself can be a postcard – letbest friend: they've known each other since university and Liberty adores Jessica's sayhusband, from a specific hotel or twoCharles and their four-year-old daughter, as we see hereAva. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, Life would be perfect for such intricate writing on said postcards – and Liberty if it wasn't for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>one thing: she misses having a man in her life.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen PhillipsB08KKQ85FN|title=Some Possible SolutionsBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Picture ''If a world where youwoman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a new motherpampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, move more to a town where you slowly start the point, about to realise that every other woman seems a replica discover the real world of you – dressing bus timetables and doing as paying his own gas bills.'' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you do. ? Consider a place where you have a perfect other half – most literally – but itWe first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's only to be found on an alien planet. Or how about Wife in [[Sorting the woman who suddenly finds she can see everything Priorities: Ambassadress and everyone else alive as having no skin, just organs, tissue Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and bone as if everyone we learned what it was having a Gunther von Hagens plastination job? A lot of these stories are hard like to summarise without dropping into be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the voice time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of the Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled'Twilight Zone'' narrationrather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, but they're not specifically genre works – they're just further examples has no intention of this author's unsettling look at the bizarre elements of lifeslowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273425</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cixin LiuB08CHJLNBS|title= The Wandering EarthCapturing Emilia|author=Brooke Adams|rating= 53|genre= Science Women's Fiction|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of womenHe's magazines (no disrespect) – think again. One genre that has always been Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a stalwart supporter and encourager of partner at Wickham Jones, the short form is Sci-fiMayfair letting agents. So when you pick up a collection of SciShe's Emilia, twenty-fi shortsnine, you know that it will have just as much depth librarian and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novelarchivist in the heritage library next door. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached Emilia has read [[The Secret by someone Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from China new age books like that, which – leave you dependent on someone else's philosophies, to be polite – has something a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much little deeper. Charles is more of the rest a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himself, 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 the planet…and add his mind? She's not his usual type at all: it's obvious to his friends. And given that an author who is not only Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficiality, why does she feel drawn to him? The relationship's obviously a bestnon-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>starter, isn't it?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Fleur Jaeggy Marie O'Regan and Gini Alhadeff Paul Kane (translatoreditors)|title= I Am The Brother Of XXCursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales|rating= 4.5|genre= Short StoriesFantasy|summary=Curses. They''I Am The Brother of XX'' is a collection of twenty one short stories from Fleur Jaeggy, who expertly wields malevolence and spite re there throughout, from the evil done between husband and wife in ''The Aviary'', a nasty tale tales of Oedipal menace faery and vicious, although admittedly, artful crueltyother fantastical folk – people being cursed to do this, or not to be able to senseless annihilation and immolation in ''The Heir''do that. Jaeggy also appears to have a particular fascination with religionChildren can be cursed, from as can princesses on the nun receiving a rather special sort verge of communion marrying, and older people too. It seems in a way there''The Visitor'' to general references to the Church and religious devotion throughout many of her storiess no escaping it. Family Which is also a recurrent why the theme; whether focused on the distance between siblings in the titular story, told from the point of view this book of short stories is such a brother filled with longing and loneliness trying standout – we may well think we know all there is to create a bond with his distant older sisterknow about this accursed character, that demonised place, or the primal need to protect the bond between mother and son, regardless of the cost in ''Adelaide'that other bewitched person. We'd be very wrong.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508024</amazonuk>1789091500

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Malcolm DevlinStibbe_Xmas|title= You Will Grow Into ThemAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating= 4.5|genre= Short StoriesHumour|summary=''Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You Will Grow Into Themonly have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it' s suitably 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. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a thrilling collection lot of ten short stories plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all centred on the nature thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for the makers of transition and change. The often grislyMeltis Newberry Fruits – well, macabre did they even try and ghoulish nature sell them any other time of the stories included in Devlin's debut collection are intoxicatingly illicit and the darkness within each tale is deviously addictive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907389431</amazonuk>year?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tove Jansson0954899520|title= Letters From KlaraA Winter Book|author=Tove Jansson|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation of Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin familybooks, Jansson is rather belatedly beginning to gather written in the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort of books'' 1940s and Thomas Teal, who has been responsible for most later becoming television characters of the translations. Receiving this one, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one of the seriessimplicity, naivety and secondly theresheer 'll come a time sooner rather than goodness' that would later when there'll be no more to be hadproduce flowerpot men or teletubbies. The former will be rectifiedSimple drawings, simple stories, the latter simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a sad thoughtserious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a 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 world might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lee Child1911115847|title= No Middle NameNights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni Kan|rating= 4|genre= Crime Literary Fiction|summary= There ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a theory, to which those who regularly read my reviews will know I sometimes subscribe, which says that the collection of short story's heyday has passed and it has now put itself out to grassstories by Toni Kan. This is particularly true, some say, The series of stories tell of the lives and I have been known to concur, lusts of an assortment of the crime characters living in and thriller genresaround Lagos, Nigeria. Tosh! I can only apologise to all authors involved and Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own up: I simply haven't been paying attentionheart of darkness. Not even to shorter offerings my by favourite authors. So: big thanks to Lee Child Danger stalks the shadows and publishers Bantam Press people are killed for putting me straight nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with ''No Middle Name'' : a collection of short vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories about my favourite latter-day, American-style, Robin Hood by the name to achieve a glimmer of ''Jack Reacher''hope.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593079019</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529014484|title=A Fanfare Exhalation |author=Ted Chiang|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Over the past twenty-eight years, Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of Talesthe work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't then take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1794467440|title=Watchwords |author=Patrick C ReidyPhilip Neal

|summary=I love This satisfying collection of short stories, so I'm always happy when has a provenance at least as beguiling as the provenance of the antique watches that inspired it. Philip Neal lost a new collection arrives for reviewwatch. ''A Fanfare It was a watch he was fond of Tales'' by Patrick C Reidy promises me ''and had been told was like a compilation 1930s Cartier. Instead of short stories mourning its loss, he began to collect vintage watches that resembled it. And that highlight the adventures of diverse characters as each encounters unforeseen challenges''s how he became a watch collector. I like this premiseAn eBay purchase led him to the Antique Watch Company watch repairers in Clerkenwell. So how does The eBay purchase was a fake, but the friendship that grew between the buyer and the repairer of watches was not and the seed of an idea for a book shape up? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524665983</amazonuk>was born.

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

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

|summary=Marged Evans allowed On my travels around the world, I have a break-tendency to end up with a lover to affect everything in her life. Osian wanted to invest in the present but Marged loved any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the past. Since they drifted apartnext person, Margedwhat I's life has been careful, ordered, unadventurous. But then Osian sends her a Christmas card and everything changes. ''Marged Evansm really looking for is the 'local' is – the first and longest in this collection of short stories from Gillian Fletcher-Edwards. It's almost a novella and its initially slow pace sets off quite cookbook maybe, the masterclass in how one event can throw everything into unexpected - maps definitely, but lovely - chaosabove all: the folk tales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524662445</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sybil Marshall and John Lawrence|title= The Book of English Folk Tales|rating= 4|genre= Anthologies|summary= From ghosts If I ever get to witchesBurma, I won't need to giants and fairieshunt, ''The Book of English Folk Tales'' is a fascinating collection of stories retold by social historian and folklorist Sybil Marshall. Out of print for over three decades, this beautiful new clothbound edition is complete with wood engraved illustrations by John Lawrence and is sure to capture the attention of a new generation of lovers of folkloreI can read before I go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468313177</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKayB077969HN8|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Alternative Medicine|author=Laura Solomon

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

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

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

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

|summary=This Sceptre collection does In the opening story, a man whose wife has deserted him visits Sandown with little money but comes away with cash in his pocket - and his wife. In ''A Grey Day'' an owner struggles with the problem of whether or not have to run his horse in the Gold Cup when the ground is against him. My favourite was ''The Story of H'', the story of Foinavon. H is depicted as simple a remit as it might appear; these are kind horse who only wanted to please people. After changing hands on various occasions he came to the yard of John Kempton. H (or Foinavon) was entered in the Grand National and considered a no straightforward love stories-hoper. Instead, they each take In one aspect of love – often one the most dramatic runnings of the ancient Greek classifications – and provide race, a whole new way of thinking about itpile-up occurred at the 23rd fence. After all Foinavon, who had been many lengths adrift, cleared the fence and galloped to the line, winning the heart holds a lot race at odds of metaphorical weight100/1.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>

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

|summary=This A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was a belated reunion for me, having been introduced delighted by the opportunity to read the authorsequel, ''Hell's snappy short story collections courtesy the very first one while at uniUnveiling''. Mind, it was a It's probably not much more gentle and placid reunion than the one that starts this book – Julie and Philippa have had of a shop-bought curry together, but have had spoiler to forsake a cultural chat for a trip haring along the London Underground chasing after a pair of glasses one of them left behind. The piece is definitely about the subject of ageing – about time passed and what might be remaining ahead – but you soon discover say that not only do all Marsha bested the pieces here have titles that are unadorned place names, but they all concern that very theme. Can anyone, let alone Helen Simpson, sustain such a vaguely morbid topic over a full collection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178470198X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=David Beckler|title= The Road More Travelled: Tales of those seeking refuge|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories|summary= devil in ''Marsha'The Road More Travelleds Deal'' , but the devil is an anthology of short stories - and not one poem - written in response to the refugee crisis as it exploded across our TV screens and newspapers throughout 2015take defeat lying down. To the horror of the authors, the language used by many was aggressive He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and dehumanising, describing this mass particularly on Marsha (who's thought of desperate people as a swarm or 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a hordestrong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. The stories together form Daniel is framed for a response crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to this otheringlive with Marsha.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993147224</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ransom Riggs|title= Tales Then, of course, there are all the Peculiar|rating= 5|genre= Teens|summary= A fork-tongued princess. A boy other children who can control the currents of the sea. Cannibals who feast on the limbs of a village of peculiars. These are just a few not only targeted but - worst of the brilliant stories to be found in ''Tales of the Peculiar'', all of which hold mystical information about the peculiar world - a place familiar subverted to many of us since its first introduction by Ransom Riggs in [[Miss Peregrinethe devil's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs|Miss Peregrineevil ends. He's Home for Peculiar Children]]out to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self-esteem is very fragile. The stories in this collection explore peculiar history and folklore in This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a wonderfully imaginative waytraining complex on earth, and also include some beautiful illustrations complete with an elevator to accompany each of the talesHell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141373407</amazonuk>