Offers on our single author anthologies
Story–telling has often been associated with weaving and spinning. All is craft, cleverness and magic.
Here indeed we have a colourful mix of beautifully crafted stories. Some are sad and others bring us hope. There are tensions in relationships, fear of the unknown coupled with surprising empathy, and accidents of birth. Death wishes are reversed, sometimes but not always, and so are lives in other realties. People’s stories intersect as they wait for a bus. An old cello causes havoc. A church clock always strikes twice… or does it? Match-making goes wrong until it goes right. And so much more.
Sally Zigmond brings an evocative literary voice to tales in The Story Weaver.
RRP £8.00
Prepare to suspend your disbelief, have the tissues handy and allow your imagination to run wild. This mix of stories will delight you, make you laugh, make you cry and make you cry out – not really!
From a woman who finds a giraffe under the canal bridge and two cats squabbling over a pancake, to an arrogant French chef and a pair of abandoned sparkly trainers, this collection will make you laugh out loud and touch your heart. You will feel intrigued by a French ghost, visit medieval Denmark at Yul, and the war-torn Middle East. You will even find romance with a green-eyed angel. These are just some of the stories you can expect to find in this collection.
In Seen Through a Glass of Red, you will discover stories which are imaginative and tender-hearted just like their creator.
RRP £7.50
In this collection, Jim looks into what it means to be human in this day and age. How do we cope with the loss of a loved one? What brings us joy? How important is friendship? Can Nature heal?
These are heavy questions, and Jim tackles them head-on with stories that are both intriguing and entertaining. He is not afraid to delve deep into life’s challenges. He looks at love and loss, our hopes and dreams, and our own inner fears. Ultimately, his stories show us the strength of the human character.
Jim’s gentle stories are sensitively written and character-driven. The main character often confronts issues shared by us all, such as coping with day-to-day annoyances or finding a way to derive meaning in a complicated world. These stories are heartfelt, and told with quiet passion and a gentle touch. In the end, they resonate with Jim’s appreciation for the challenges we all face and, ultimately, the beauty of what it means to be truly alive and to live in this world.
RRP £9.50
Stories to soothe your soul.
In a world drowning in negativity and dark events, we all need a little light and hope. With a little adventure, romance and even music, these short stories will give your hopes and dreams a nudge as they draw a smile.
A Gentle Nudge by Mason Bushell wraps you in calm.
Iris and Zach have an uneasy but intriguing run.
A vast patchwork landscape of life is displayed through stories relating both the wonder and absurdity we all recognize. With a focus on mental health, these stories take the reader from incarceration to freedom, fear to comfort. There are celebrations of life and poetic lows. The Yin and Yang aspects of life are recognized in new and deliberate examples that instil thoughtfulness and occasionally a smile.
Who would have thought it?
An abominable snowman speaks, dreams so good you’ll never want to wake up, metaphysical questions, a cat with telepathy, a magical stream in USA’s Northwest, and an unexpected invasion from the far north of Canada.
Can the drama in these episodes match the real drama of 21st century life? There is a murder mystery and can we find a cue?
These interlocking episodes, which form the second series based around the activities of an amateur dramatic group, first appeared on CaféLit, the e-zine to read with your afternoon cuppa.
RRP £6.50
I Knew It in the Bath by Linda Flynn
The bathtub is the place where dreams and possibilities flow as easily as the tap water – if only they would go to plan.
I Knew it in the Bath is a collection of absorbing short stories which show that no matter how we expect events to unfold, life has a way of confounding us. What will a woman do to save her friend? Do we really know when we’re being watched? Why did Dora throw the iron through the window? What’s the best way to take revenge on a cheating partner?
Settle back for an engaging read through these humorous, sinister and thought-provoking stories, but try not to drop your book in the bath!
Linda Flynn, a frequent contributor to our annual themed anthologies , gives us food for thought in the stories collected in I Knew in in the Bath.
RRP £8.00
A Feast of Tales, Gently Twisted by Dawn Bush
A tempting tale for every mood.
An eclectic mixture of tales that take you to a pragmatic Fairyland, where anything can happen – and not all of it beneficial; to an unknown dusty planet in the distant sky; and back in time on earth through time, space, land and sea; through love, selfishness and triumph. They are a feast of the unexpected.
A Feast of Tales, Gently Twisted is an intriguing collection of short stories by Dawn Bush.
RRP 7.0 0
The Day Chuck Berry Died by Ian Inglis
Angels and Devils by William Wilson
Cautionary tales of ordinary mortals doing extraordinary things.
From moral dilemmas to a Nativity miracle, the author takes us on a deeply thoughtful journey through eleven tales of the unexpected. Are the protagonists angels or devils, or even a bit of both? Would you help a friend to die? Would you tell your family if you inherited a fortune? Would you shelter a criminal from the law? We know these people and see their choices. What would we do in their place?
William Wilson makes us reflect in this collection of stories that take us by surprise.
RRP £8.00
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The Sound of Patriarchy and other stories by L.F. Roth
A collection of stories that runs the gamut from serious to comic. Relationships, and reactions to traumatic experiences or change, all come under scrutiny. Life-changing events play out against a counterpoint of minutely observed details.
Though you won't meet any bears in this volume, you will come across the real Dylan, delve into a literary feud, partake in preparations for a funeral rehearsal, share a musician's musings, find out the importance of gender-neutral watches and, perhaps, learn to stay clear of tigers, at least in the form of tattoos.
L.F. Roth brings us thought-provoking stories in The Sound of Patriarchy and Other Stories.
RRP £9.00
For a Few Hours by Yvonne Walus
In
these eighteen linked stories, the reader accompanies our heroine Noela
(“born on Santa Clause’s Day!”) as she develops from an insecure
Daddy’s Girl into a woman willing and able to stand on her own. Go on
this journey with her as she meets challenge after challenge and as her
relationships with all around her change.
The Memory Keeper is a collection of tales about a life well learnt in S. Nadja Zajdman’s distinctive story-teller voice.
RRP £9.00
An
intriguing mixture of stories, all in Leela Dutt’s inimitable style –
something here for everyone, and beautifully illustrated by Kate
Attfield.
Some are short and funny, some poignant – widows faced
with losing their grandchildren, a daughter burying her father and
dealing with a domineering mother. One endearing narrator is not human
at all but still strikes a chord with us. Time travellers visit Hans
Andersen’s Copenhagen; a young German boy is welcomed by some but by no
means all in Hertfordshire just after the war. Perilous adventures in a
hire car in the south of France are described by a lad who is unaware
that at the very moment he’s telling us about his family holiday, London
is under attack. A young Japanese car manufacturer encounters the
strange people of the South Wales Valleys – and their grandfather who
was a prisoner of war in Burma. Finally the life story of a Quaker
celebrating her ninetieth birthday at the end of the century.
Leela Dutt’s collection Fresh Beginnings will warm your heart and stay in your mind – it might even make you laugh!
RRP £8.00
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“What if?” An unanswered question. The unexplained, a mystery, a road not taken.
This is a collection of dark fiction injected here and there with glimmers of humour.
The
author takes us on a surreal and ghostly journey from Latin America’s
Day of the Dead, through the coastal towns of Lancashire, a pig farm in
Denmark, a high-rise in Mallorca, a haunted vicarage at Christmas and a
town centre coffee bar. The voices we hear are variously plaintive,
nostalgic, and occasionally vindictive or vengeful: the testimonies and
fears of the living and the dead.
Anne Wilson, writes about
places she knows, imbuing the natural world and the everyday with
disturbing fantasy and the supernatural.
RRP £7.00
A collection of eccentric and quirky tales.
Atheism
is more of a fad for Mimsie rather than part of a belief system. Is
Emily Mayhew’s real motivation about buying a house or are her wants and
needs a little more complex to say the least? Home under the hammer
take on a new twist as people come to delight in the perhaps gruesome
fate of the former residents of the properties on offer.
Mysterious Ways is
a single author collection from Bridge House Publishing. Jeff Laurent s
is an enthralling story-teller who invites us to look again at what we
thought was normal.
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A collection of character based stories with a strong element of stream-of-consciousness style in some of them.
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Resilience is a single author collection from Bridge House Publishing. Jim Bates has a well-established voice and he brings us a substantial collection of emotionally-rich, thought-provoking stories.
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In
this haunting collection, one of Jesse Falzoi’s characters imagines the
word “Wuthering” means “From all directions and never the one you
anticipated.” Using this definition, these are Wuthering stories, coming
at life from many angles, each one full of surprise and illumination.
Falzoi’s characters thrum with yearning—for connection, for meaning, for
a place to be, to belong. They will find a permanent home inside your
heart.
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Within the pages of Days Pass like a Shadow
are thirteen dark tales covering the theme of death and loss. At the
centre of every story is a beating heart. For the reader to make the
journey to that centre, along the flowing veins of the words, all they
need is a few minutes during a lunch break, or at the end of the day.
The reader will be introduced to a rich and diverse collection of
characters - a gardener, a serial killer, a time traveller, a
sleepwalker and many more.
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You
will find in this collection a mixture of themes and genres. There are
brushes with the supernatural, an exploration of human emotions,
history, love and loss, and also a firm sense of time and place.
Jeanne
Davies thinks up her stories whilst walking for miles in the
countryside with her Labrador companion at her side. Wandering along the
seashore with the serenity and chaos of the ocean inspires and gives
her peace.
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Ostracised
by betrayal, isolated through indifference, gutted with guilt, or
suffering from loss, the characters in these twenty-two stories are
fractured and broken, some irreparably. In their struggle for
acceptance, and their desperate search for meaning, they deny the past.
Some abandon responsibility, others are running from something or
someone. Some flee their homes and their homelands, while others return
home, only to find themselves even more marginalized and estranged.
“Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a successful businessman running an empire from a luxury penthouse. I was a chain-smoking, fifty-something, sometime actor in a cardigan, washed-up in a stagnant corner of south London.”
When Rafe Bunce takes over a run-down hair salon in Penge, he hopes to make a success of his life at last. Not content with improving his own fortunes, he is soon meddling in his customers’ lives, too – with bittersweet results.
The stories in Last Chance Salon touch on the hopes and dreams, big and small, which we all carry inside us.
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Links – sometimes random, many times unplanned, often with far reaching consequences, always shaping our journey from cradle to grave – the stuff of life.
Just how do Atta Gatta the child-eating crocodile,
Scheherazade the pantomime star and Judy the stammering Goth
strategically connect characters across the globe?
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Matters of Life and Death
is a collection of stories that examines, in different ways, the many
insecurities we experience whilst navigating our way towards the
inevitable. Whether it is a fear of the unknown, the burden of loss, or
the joy of first love, each of us shares a meandering journey of the
unexpected that ultimately defines who we are and how we connect with
the universe that created us.
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n
this debut collection of short stories Paul Bradley takes a look at how
extra-ordinary everyday life can be. Kitchen sink realism, magic
realism and humour are deployed to present a variety of characters, many
of whom live on the margins and cannot or will not fit in. In these
pages you will meet a walrus man, a mynah bird called Hitler, Kendo
Nagasaki, gypsy Romana, a lonely signaller and many others in an
eclectic variety of edgy tales from where the wall is cracked. Wherever
possible, light shines through.
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The
thirty-five stories in Mooney's debut are dominated by a cast of
characters who colour outside of society's lines. They are hustlers,
prostitutes, addicts, gangsters, killers, thieves, beasts. They are the
dangerous, the lost, the lonely, the sick, the suicidal, the
broken-hearted. Men and women, defeated by life. Their depravity is
real, yet the writing in this uncompromising collection of transgressive
fiction, always carefully crafted, evokes the sense that their humanity
is not yet lost. In Whisky for Breakfast, nothing is off limits.
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Seventeen short stories by Debz Hobbs-Wyatt from over a decade of competition wins and shortlistings. Featuring Learning to Fly, winner of the inaugural Bath Short Story Award; Chutney, shortlisted in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and Pushcart-nominated The Theory of Circles.
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Other Ways of Being" is an anthology of stories that ask us many questions about:
•otherness:
Is a stranger a threat or is he just trying to help? It may be as
clever as being a fortune-teller but is it helpful?
•other times: Is
the wild woman really a little girl that she used to know? Will they be
safe now or should they worry about the bright soldiers marching? Which
horror does the deep sleeper hide?
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hese stories – some light and some dark – were written over several years. A few, such as Henry’s Box,
were the result of writing prompts from one of my writing groups,
Basildon Writers, while others were sparked by random sights, such as
someone’s tattoo, or by snatches of overheard conversation. As for the
rest, I can’t recall any particular event triggering them, so can only
conclude the initial idea popped into my head when I wasn’t paying
attention. And sometimes I find those sort of stories turn out to be the
strangest of them all. Whether you prefer light or dark stories, I hope
there is something amongst this eclectic collection that will appeal to
you.
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Keepsake
and Other Stories is an anthology of short stories by one of the
growing number of brave women writers. Jenny Palmer brings us stories of
otherness, witchcraft and magic close to home and further afield within
Europe. We meet all sorts of characters: those who rely on guard dogs,
those who shun social media and those who are obsessed. We even meet a
Neanderthal man. There are paranormal stories, a story of bad
neighbours, and a story of redundancy. And many more. All to be
enjoyed.
In this internationally-acclaimed collection of contemporary literary fiction stories by Paul Williams we are invited to appreciate what it means to master the art of losing – to let go of things both big and small – whether it be dreams, or love, or houses, or whole continents. Told with wit, humour and pathos, the stories reveal the unexpected narratives that often flow beneath the surface of contemporary lives.
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