Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                       Manipulated Lives by H.A.Leuschel. "My emotions felt like they had tumbled from a great height, crashing onto sharp, rough rocks below. I started to doubt my own intuitions and judgements and there were some days when I was feeling like an empty shell." This is a collection of five short stories conveying a message that manipulation can ruin lives. Themes of deception and untrustworthy testaments distort the truth and it results in mayhem. Sophie, the narrator was tall, blonde with green eyes. She epitomises beauty. She worked part-time at a P.R. firm writing literary reviews for women's magazines as a freelancer. The story is set in London with a relaxing break to Brighton. It was when Sophie was visiting her private sports' club that she noticed a small and delicate boy who seemed to have been abandoned sitting in the children's play area. "He looked like a beautiful, fantastical characte...

A World Without Colour by Bernard Jan. "Your presence in my life is like a room filled with lamps. When you're gone, the brightest, the prettiest one will go out. And leave behind the half-light of unclear shadows." You could almost hear John Donne speaking so reverently and adoringly to his lover in endearing terms. Metaphysics. This eulogy is full of love and sadly, a lot of heartache. It is written beautifully in such a poetic style to help us to empathise with the author over a difficult three day period in which his pet died. For animal lovers, attached to their pets it will be easy to identify with the emotional horror of seeing a sick animal dying, being helpless to do anything other than watch the angel of death end his suffering: "I knew I would stay with you until the end, that we would spend life together." It's an emotional outburst. It's just like losing a brother, a close relative you care for and whose loss you mourn. It be...

                       Lou's Homecoming by Stephan A. Onisick. " Sometimes, art echoes life. The uncanny death of the guest actor in the episode (Remember Me from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman)resonated deeply within me. It paralleled the deaths of my father and half-brother, Lou." Stephan works as a Sharepoint Developer with Analytical Mechanics Associate contracted to NASA's International Space Station in Huntsville. This story goes back  twenty years to 1997 when the first episode of "Lou's Homecoming " was written. Twenty years down the line the draft was revisited, expanded and finally published as an ebook. It was January 1989. Our author was 38, married and living in Birmingham, Alabama when he received an unexpected call from someone called Lou Onisick claiming to be a relative. Stephan's father had been born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1912. He had worked down th...

                         The Escape by C.L.Taylor. "She isn't afraid of going outside, she's afraid of situations where she can't escape or get help." It seems that some things are impossible to escape: tragic incidents in the past, something we can all relate to. Bury the skeletons and what happens? Eventually, things will surface and we have to attempt to deal with the impossible. Taylor has created a credible character in the form of Jo. Blackmore, still grieving over the loss of her baby son and suffering from agoraphobia. Her husband, Max, an investigative journalist (or a crime reporter) is portrayed less sympathetically, seems to be far too protective of Jo and obsessive with his young daughter Elise. He has been instrumental in the conviction of Ian White who had set up a national chain of money-lending shops that charged extortionate interest rates for vulnerable people such as ...

  Dark shadows clouded my dreams of the sunny farm bright with geraniums and orange blossom. A valley teeming with murderous snakes guarding the entrance to a place of stones and scorpions.   Most of us can empathise with Chris and Ana for deciding to move to an idyllic but challenging life in the mountains of Andalucia. Isn't it everyone's dream perhaps? Or perhaps that should read nightmare. Chris found his paradise early on in his house-hunting days. La Herradura would have been his first choice but he was discouraged from purchasing it because of complications in multiple owners not wishing to sell. His second choice was El Valero set amongst orange and lemon trees, olives and blossoming almonds. What could be more Spanish or delightful to the eye? A mountain farm, just what he desired. My head was whirling with excitement; wild ideas and dreams pouring in. Once the excitement levelled, he then realised why Pedro Romero was so keen to sell-a dam was goi...