Short Stories Book Reviews

This small collection consists of six very short stories and a novella. The stories are linked by theme: death, madness, forgiveness, love. It’s primal stuff, and Donnelly handles his material gently, almost reverently. The first six stories are very short, very lean, almost ghost-like. And indeed the quiet dead figure largely in these stories, as do the unhappy and angry living. However, not much is resolved, or even really explored, in these first few stories. They are almost like snapshots or sketches of people trying unsuccessfully to reach out and connect with one another, whether across a table in a […]

Spoofs are a serious business in literature, particularly when murder is involved. Pulling off a send-up of hard-boiled detective and spy novels is like singing badly on purpose –  it ain’t as easy as it looks.

This volume of fifteen short stories, the third in a related series by Australian writer Gerry Burke, provides the reader with everything the crime spoof genre has to offer. Burke’s writing style is terse, the read is quick and no one is bothered by any pesky Oxford commas in these fifteen short stories.

Our narrator is Patrick Pesticide, aka Paddy Pest, a self-referenced ‘discount […]

Reviewing self-published fiction can sometimes feel like a thankless task, even when you’re being paid for it. You can find yourself slogging through a book so woeful that you wonder how the author could possibly think it was ready for publication. Other times, you’ll be excited by a premise or intrigued by a character, but ultimately disappointed because the book doesn’t quite reach its mark. Then, there are those rare occasions when you find yourself in the hands of an author so unarguably gifted that your critical faculties are temporarily cut off. Within pages, you’ve slipped into the experience that […]

Short stories seem to be on the upturn in self-publishing and I am beginning to warm to the genre when I get to read something as original as this collection, “Beauty And The Singularities” by John Waite.

So what are the singularities of beauty? The development of knowledge of some other kind of beauty, maybe, beauty in the soul or in a memory, or maybe how one small happening can relate to another quite by accident and yet cause an event that is very much on purpose. This is the theme here, and with eight stories that somehow feel connected […]

Nine Princesses: Tales of Love and Romance by Sheela Word brought back to life a time long gone. In each story, a princess has an impediment blocking her path to happiness. How each one overcomes their obstacle makes for some entertaining reading.

Normally I like to give a brief synopsis of a novel before giving my thoughts. However, since this collection contains nine different stories, I find that going right to my commentary makes it easier. One of the enjoyable aspects about reading is visiting new worlds, or in this case, a different time period. These stories transported me back […]

It is not often that I pick up a book of short stories with a song in my heart because the genre is just so damn difficult to get right – and when a writer succeeds he then has to stand against the greats such as H.P. Lovecraft, Saki, Angela Carter, Roald Dahl. Why do I mention these names? Because Sean Manseau, the author of You Are Not A Planet could easily line up against them.

Bijoux grotesques flank classic modern Gothic and stripped fairytale prose to reveal a universe not content to exist, but to thrive with crafted language […]

In life, Hanna Singer, protagonist of this unique fantasy, was a rare individual: a medieval atheist. After she dies, she finds out just how wrong she was. As it turns out, the Christian villagers who had tried so hard to convert her didn’t have it quite right either.

In the afterlife, Hannah becomes a Celestial Advocate, someone who argues the cases of souls petitioning for admittance to Heaven. The concept alone is falling-off-the-chair funny, and the book lives up to that promise, with slapstick, puns, and wry cultural references scattered throughout. The Archangel St. Michael is a delightful trickster, with […]

Much of this collection, a trio of short stories and extra material to boot, features characters with previous appearances in the short fiction of Carolyn Moncel. Following the three stories there is an Epilogue, a Mini-Interview of the author, some handy Book Club questions, an excerpt from Carolyn’s forthcoming novel Geneva Nights, and blurbs for Carolyn’s two previous publications Encounters in Paris and 5 Ways to Leave a Lover.

The setting for the three stories in Railway Confessions is a train ride from Paris to Geneva, during which three pairs of strangers share intimate details of their lives […]