Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                                        The Garden Party. Katherine Mansfield.   Mansfield was best known for her short stories rather than her reviews, journals, letters or poems. She was regarded as a highly influential Modernist writer, experimental as well as innovative in her style of writing. "The Garden Party" is a linear story " working " on different levels, simply detailing Laura, the protagonist's account of organising the garden party to her first probable encounter with death. The story is multi-layered and leaves the reader with more questions than answers, a deliberate ploy by the writer, challenging conventions. Direct speech is used throughout and in this extract Mr Sheridan speaks metaphorically on one level of a " beastly accident " verging on anthropomorphism in comparing Mr Scott to an animal and on another level, indicating the speaker's social background usin...

  The opening chapter "  Bitter and Twisted " ( nicknames given to two of the crime specialists) gives the reader a sickening insight into illegal immigration and people smuggling. Set in Tenerife. The first victim, Rafi, bled to death. Seventeen African illegal immigrants between the ages of eighteen and thirty had just arrived on the island. Rafi was "one of our men"  and had been planted amongst the men in order to attempt to crack a major people smuggling ring from the inside. "He felt like a farm animal up for sale-or slaughter."  Dramatic irony. His knee cap is shattered, his hand cut off ( "too smooth") and stuck in his mouth as a warning to the police and guardia civil. The action moves to Los Cristianos where we meet Lieutenant Vargas and protagonist Andrew Kirby who works for CITES-Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species such as tigers, leopards, rhinos and walruses. They are carrying out surveillance of forty-four Afric...

  "Wouldn't it be a blessing to forget some of our memories forever, erased from the mind as if they'd never happened?" We begin in September 2016 when 30 year old Lizzie seems to be having a nightmare-standing alone by a dark lake feeling "helpless, aimless and without memory of what has happened."  It is atmospheric with present continuous verbs of shaking and shudder[ing], naked feet sinking into a graphic image of mud, followed by a desperate scream. A hooded giant had chased Lizzie, caught her, dropped her into the water and pushed her under. Over the course of the novella, Leuschel's first, the opening is ominous and complete with pathetic fallacy. This, in effect, is the end, the nightmare being the " remnants of confusing, unsettling years." She has survived three very difficult years being controlled, manipulated by Morag, a neighbour and a "surrogate" mother as well as a husband verging on the narcissistic who relishes hav...

                                  C RUEL SUMMER by Bernard Jan. " I'm lost in a world I do not understand and I'm trying to find myself." It's mid-August and NYC is established as the main setting to this tragic and disconcerting story about Michael Daniels a 17 year old, suffering grievously from the recent death of his mother Melanie, losing the will to live. We are plunged into a cold NYC suggesting that America is experiencing a new climatic disorder and establishing pathetic fallacy to set the scene for some shocking revelations. It is " a perfect setting for his {Michael's} gloomy feelings and depressing thoughts." "Cruel Summer" is an apt title, ominous, reflecting Michael's mind and life. Young adults will understand and appreciate the intensity, dark moods and melancholic tones. His relationship with his step-father, Hank is a brutal one. He works at RIRL-Roosevelt Island Research Institute wh...

                  Fragments of a Dream by Ruth Larrea. "If only Angelos and I could rewrite our lives on a blank page equipped with fresh wisdom and insight." Describing Larrea's debut novel as a simple love story doesn't quite do it justice. Considering the ageing population, marriages that collapse in later years and the need to be loved, it is refreshing that the protagonist is in her senior years, close to retirement. It is a romantic story of people in the third age of life rediscovering themselves and their loved ones. Rosie Burden is a survivor and the novel has a positivity about it in spite of the setbacks. "A lifetime of sacrifices" is how she described putting Harry first. No tell-tale signs that he would leave Rosie for a younger woman. There were tensions throughout their marriage which affected their offspring, Lisa and Matthew but nothing unusual compared to other families. Rosie had se...

                        The C Word.TV Drama. "Losing someone to cancer really resets your perspective. It makes me value life, cherish my loved ones and be grateful for every day I have with them."(Sheridan Smith) 4.2 million people recently tuned in to watch an outstanding and powerful performance by Sheridan Smith (recently seen in Cilla) and whose credits include the sitcom Gavin & Stacey, Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Quartet with Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon to more highbrow Ibsen. A versatile actress and an accomplished singer. Staring cancer in the face may be construed as a bravado act but it takes a lot of courage. Smith, affectionately known as the queen of the biopic agreed to play Lisa Lynch, a journalist, or more specifically a magazine editor. Lynch was adamant that her alter ego should be played by Smith and only Smith. ...

                  Marriages Are Made in Bond Street by Penrose Halson . "The men come over here, the girls are already here, they all want to get together but they never meet! Let's introduce them-let's start a marriage agency." It's spring, 1939 just before the war started. Two young women, both twenty-four, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver decided to open a marriage bureau in Bond Street, London. The book by Halson celebrates ten years of matching couples during a difficult period in English history. Many years later, Halson found herself proprietor of the Katherine Allen Marriage and Advice Bureau (1986). In 1992 it had incorporated Heather Jenner's agency. Her source came partly from Jenner's daughter, Stella Sykes who had archived her mother's copious notes as well as three books on marriage, two by Jenner and one by Mary Oliver collaborating with Mary Benedetta. The stories are interesting...

                 The Calico Cat by Amanda James.  "Then life takes huge bites out of you, chews you up, spits you out and watches you slowly bleed to death by the wayside." I find it refreshing to come across writing that is somewhat different and far removed from the world of crime and detection, my usual genre. James indicates that this is about a journey of self-discovery, life, love and adventure mainly for the persona, Lottie Morgan, a "damaged" individual because of how her parents mismanaged an extremely "delicate" situation when their daughter was at an impressionable age. Lottie is not your average female and she is so complicated, having suffered a rejection by Jenny her mother then further betrayals from people she cared about. It got so bad for Lottie that she started to self-harm, followed by suicidal thoughts then displayed what is referred to as psychotic behaviour. We get a glimp...

                Merciless by Heleyne Hammersley. "I can't seem to stop what I've started. It's his fault. I can feel his poison in me, flowing through my veins." Police procedural murder investigations combined with the thriller genre make up for a dynamic combination. You won't be disappointed. "Merciless" is the second novel in the D.I. Kate Fletcher series. Set mainly around south Yorkshire you are presented with a bunch of down-to-earth detectives working with Kate. Hollis was a key part of her team, Sam Cooper, efficient but an extremely private person, Barratt and O'Connor who Kate tolerated but disliked. Nothing untoward. Kate takes her work seriously and it dominates her life. She seems a little more compassionate and human  showing how different she is from how the stereotypical D.I. is portrayed. Nick Tsappis becomes romantically attached to Kate at the end and sums up her caring nature when he tells her: "It matters....

                   Islands by Gwen GB. "How could a child, let alone several children, have gone missing without anybody noticing, without somebody querying where they'd gone?" Islands is a powerful and personal story based around the tragedy of miscarriages and the horrors of physical and sexual abuse. It is Gwen's debut novel and worth a read. The timeline covers Katherine's late teenage years in 1976 into the 1980s and to her maturity in 2008. In the background we are reminded of actual historical events such as the Shannon Matthews case, Haut de la Garenne, Elisabeth and Josef Fritzl and the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 flight. Footloose and fancy-free, that's how Katherine was as she took her final exams, inseparable from her friend Anne. Both are relishing the prospect of leaving school with boys on their minds, obsessed with Darren Le Brocq and Mark Vibert. Katherine's mother, Marie ...

             My Sweet Friend by H.A.Leuschel. "Beyond the façade we were all human, fragile and sensitive to judgement." Helene conducted research into the consequences of lying and I mean serious lying and this interesting novella is the result. It touches on mythomania, more commonly known as pathological lying, where guilt doesn't exist at all. If parameters exist between truth and fiction, they are so blurred they are unrecognisable. It is written in first person with two very different narrators: one nice "The Sweet Friend," the other malicious. The story is set in France, mainly in Paris although Alexa Dubois escapes for a break to Biarritz, apparently on sick-leave through exhaustion. It's 2017. Alexa has just started a new job in Paris working with Rosie, Jack, Monique and Marc connected to sales and marketing as an accounts manager. Initially, Alexa had made a strong impression on all but Monique. Jack fancied her. Rosie just...