New Island Books have been busy releasing the anthologies ‘The Glass Shore’ and ‘The Long Gaze Back’ and in their wake is an undiscovered gem of a book and we here at STORGY are extremely excited that we found the wonderful anthology that is ‘Hostages’ by the rather unknown Oisin Fagan (but not for very
A woman living in a lifeless, depressing seaside town wakes one night to find a blank piece of paper has been slipped beneath the door to her room. The woman, Susan, lives above the pub where she works. Hers is an unsatisfactory, depressing existence that, we soon learn, is the creation of another woman, Bonnie
This collection of short stories by Carys Bray is one of the best anthologies by an English author for a long while. I found this so entertaining as I am a parent of two beautiful girls that are around the same age as some of the children in these stories. Whilst also seeing myselfand my
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them begins with an introduction – by way of dramatic effect – to our protagonist Grindelwald– via a montage of his villainous acts (for the novice, a montage is a series of moving shots, in this case; newspaper articles). It works well, however, I couldn’t help but desire more; I
Impact by Rob Boffard is an enjoyable slice of survival sci-fi, comparable to recent bestsellers such as The Martian or Hugh Howey’s Wool. Its central conceit is a familiar one. Nuclear fallout has rendered the Earth almost uninhabitable. This has forced humanity, bar a few hardy souls, to flee to ‘Outer Earth’, a series of
This collection came very highly recommended; I was a huge fan of her work from previously reading her collection ‘Broken Things’ and her fiction novel ‘The Knife Drawer’ both of which I would recommend you popping to the shop and purchasing…along with ‘Fates of the Animals’. When opening the book and fingering my way through
The Hidden People is a novel firmly steeped in the Gothic tradition, with Victorian-styled prose that explores the familiar dichotomies pertinent to literature of that era: city versus rural, genteel versus peasant, fact versus fiction, real versus imagined. Unfortunately, the effect it produces on the reader is also one of dichotomy: at times carrying off
Sometimes the change in tone, in storyline, of a novel can be so unexpected, so jarring, that the reader feels completely derailed. It’s as if you’re on your way somewhere expected, you’re enjoying the travel and the view, when all of a sudden there’s an almighty crash, the ground is suddenly the sky and people
14) The Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill He bought it, in the shape of the dead man’s suit, delivered in a heart-shaped box, because he wanted it: because his fans ate up that kind of story. It was perfect for his collection: the genuine skulls and the bones, the real honest-to-God snuff movie, the
There’s a problem that faces authors trying to write characters with a mental illness. Being inside the head of someone with a psychological condition doesn’t necessarily make for an interesting experience for the reader. The Beginning of the End, a debut novel by Ian Parkinson from publisher Salt, runs slap-bang into this problem. The main
