A review of Unthology4, by Tim Love at Litrefs Reviews, that I missed when published in March, which said nice things about my story, The Murder of Crows:
“The first few stories are slice-of-life – a man on a beach wonders where his life/marriage went wrong; a woman thinks back to her repressive religious upbringing; a post-apocalyptic (deadly virus) male survivor is asked by a dying old man to look after a baby. There are young couples in a decaying relationships, loners, and youths trying to have relationships who are still living with their parents. Several of the narrators sounded more articulate and expressive than their characterisation might lead one to expect. Of course, this is a literary convention, but the monologing of some of the first person voices drew particular attention to this. “The Angel” (dead body found in garden precipitating family break-up) felt long in parts, though I liked it. I also liked “The murder of crows” (an inversion of “The Birds”. It emerges that the main character, who’s living with her parents, is blind), and liked most of all Sarah Bower’s “Finished””
For the full article click here: litrefsreviews.blogspot.co.uk
On other matters, my holiday in Serbia was drunken, fattening and relaxing. We swam in the Danube, visited lakes on the border with Romania, ate excessive amounts of pastry and cheese, and drank Rakija until it came out of our eyeballs. I played tennis and volleyball which made me feel a little cleansed, and I held up British honour by beating the Serbians. I shaved off my beard and now everybody is telling me how young I look and that they never really liked it in the first place. It’s weird how only a handful of people were honest with their dislike of it.