Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

With his bloated belly, matchstick legs and tangled punk-rocker style fur, he looked like a child's drawing come to life and he also looked pregnant. Woodcock overemphasises the message through the plot which has so many twists and turns that you wonder if you are on a rollercoaster which is about to crash: don't be deceived by first impressions. True nature will out. Things aren't always what they seem. Fortunately the bad guys are caught and everything turns out satisfactory after chaos and mayhem dominate the lives of the Bennetts. And this is NOT Pride and Prejudice or the Waltons. As one might say: never a dull moment in the Bennett household. The Bennetts have more than the average number of skeletons in the closet even for a dysfunctional family at constant war with each other and the world at large, with the occasional truce. The story cleverly satirises a working class family at its worst being battered from pillar to post with drug scams, surrogacy, infidelit...

My breath spirals skyward, steam rings inflating and slowly dissipating like some magic trick performed with a cigarette and a balloon................. A number of local writers living in Spain have contributed to this selection of short stories covering different genres, extremely readable for autumnal evenings, relaxing as the sun sets. Just the tonic. Say no more! The One That Got Away by Michael Barton can be read on a number of levels. It shows Jack's resilience and maturation in dealing with his parents' divorce, his journey from laggard to leader. Dad was labelled as an absent parent and blamed for his son's spiral into anti-social and unacceptable behaviour at school. The idea of togetherness in separation isn't anything like the ideal situation that Jack's father envisages. He wants to be reunited with his wife, however, she has made other plans: sleeping with the boss, Dave, has paid off and she has been promoted. So, the togetherness is an oppor...

The painting which I am currently working on will be called Guernica. By means of it, I express my abhorrence of the race that has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death.                                                                                                                     Pablo Picasso Like the great artist, Boling painted his sprawling mural as a fictional piece, emphasising how closely-knit and stru...

  They stood close, smiling into each other's eyes, drowning in the pleasure of seeing each other again. For a few brief minutes they were oblivious to where they were and their reasons for being in these anonymous surroundings that could have been anywhere in the world. Victoria Hislop became an instant success with her debut novel The Island. You may have also read The Thread or The Return? If you are looking for the same quality but in smaller doses I can recommend this short story collection inspired by her love of Greece, giving us some insight into typical Greek customs and traditions, the reality not the fantasy. The Last Dance is full of life's ironies and sad. The setting is Athens for the lavish wedding of Theodoris and Nefeli. Ironically, businesses had closed because of the recession although weddings were as extravagant as ever. No expense spared. Everyone seemed to be getting married and Hislop writes about nuptial gridlock which destroys the whole roman...

Flailing arms disappeared as the flames from the burning gasoline shot even higher  and engulfed the few heads that bobbed on the surface. He could hear the screams of men as their flesh melted in the heat. We start with a prologue, set in Germany towards the end of the second world war with an insignificant man, Gerhard Schneider, witnessing cargo being unloaded from a U-boat, overseen by Doenitz. The military convoy left with Doenitz before the submarine exploded. No survivors. About the same time a raid on Selsey, south England went horribly wrong. The German fast boat went down. Again, no survivors. The story then begins in Kent, England and moves to the present day. What a dramatic opening with the planned assassination of Jack Hudson, Secretary of State-a high profile figure. The Assassin is utterly wicked, a typically Machiavellian character who was addicted to killing and found it pleasurable. To him, it was much better than any snort of cocaine or a puff of weed. ...

No way was optimism ever going to be allowed to shape the future. Even to suggest there was a glimmer of hope was met with a sharp rebuff. This is an interesting collection of 6 short stories recounting actual events on various visits to either European countries or within the U.K. The commonality is a touch of philosophical resonance mixed with an element of humour, notably sarcasm and wit. Even a search for wisdom, insight and enlightenment can produce, along its path, moments of hilarity. This is Walker's first collection and hopefully, not his last. Why Are Pessimists So Vocal? touches upon these infuriatingly annoying but spontaneous and unavoidable encounters with one of those oddballs suffering from verbal diarrhoea which I am sure we can all relate to and detest?! It doesn't really matter whether it was Portugal, Spain or the moon. It can happen anywhere. The writer was at peace with the world, walking through a pine forest remarking on the beauty of nature...

The dead are sacred. Impartial. Unbiased. So Franco runs his tours on the strength of them. And just being able to run them shows that the Nationalists are legitimate. Winning. It is hard to imagine going on a tour of northern Spain during the Spanish civil war in 1938 and being guaranteed a safe passage? Was that possible when the war was still raging? On the one hand there was plenty of evidence of the abject poverty and devastation although the tourists generally had lavish accommodation, experiencing the wonderful Spanish cuisine whilst others starved. Living in this luxury inoculates us from the horrors of it all. The tours had been organised by Franco and boasted of witnessing atrocities in defeating and annihilating the Reds. A one-sided lesson. It's even harder to imagine being taken hostage and used as a pawn in a deadly political game. Seeing history in the making or being a part of the history where your life is endangered. This is what makes the book riveting f...