Tag: shorts

Short Story Reviews: Battered Heart (2021) & On the Edge of Salt (2020)

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Battered Heart by Maxime Jaz

Home. Tasting that foreign feeling word. Trying to forget that large house filled with sunshine and their love.

Oh, this short story was absolutely heartbreaking! It follows the last moments of an ending relationship and it’s just so shattering. Jaz writes wonderfully evocative characters that you just want to hug and protect. Definitely worth checking out!

On the Edge of Salt (Blood Brute #0.2) by Dixon Reuel

People might climb Holly Hill, might even pass through the ring of holly trees surrounding Owl Court. But nobody crossed that sacred boundary of their red brick wall. To Rise, it was an edge between worlds, marked by the coven with white, ancient salt rubbed deep into the brick foundations. Every dawn, the coven invoked a prayer in the Old Language to reinforce their sacred protection.

I haven’t read this series yet, but I saw the short story on my feed and it looked quite interesting, so I dove in face first like always with absolutely no context, haha. I really liked it!! Reuel’s writing is crisp and polished, and the characters are engaging. Very intrigued about the rest of the series! Definitely worth checking out!

Short Story Review: customer service (2019)

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customer service by C. Vandyke

And, mathematically speaking, nothing less than one-hundred percent was perfect. With its Decision Trees, Fuzzy Logic, and CRMs, the neural network could crunch-data and analyze trends to perfection, but there was still one variable that even its AI could not completely solve for: taste.

What a great line.

I read C. Vandyke’s customer service, which is made up of two short stories! There was ‘Customer satisfaction’ and ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Amazon Prime’, a twist on The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Both were commentaries on modern technology and society and were very well written! I’ll definitely be reading more by this author! 

Indie Bites Vol. 2: Mermaids & Mythology OUT NOW!

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The stories are free online to download in epub, mobi or pdf format; you can purchase the paperback here and the stories are also being released in podcast!

Short Story Review: Keys (2020)

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Keys by Tim Parks

The past is a dream, Daniel thought. There is no way to make sense of it.

This was quite an interesting short story! The idea of introspection and dreams surrounding old relationships and symbolic keys was a solid premise and the prose was lovely, but I did find myself wishing it was just a little bit longer. Really enjoyed it, though!

Read it for yourself here.

Short Story Review: Termites by Neha De Alwis

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I love discovering new literary magazines and new authors in one fell swoop! Totally delightful! I stumbled across Kill Your Darlings (no, not the Daniel Radcliffe movie) this morning after seeing the name in a Goodreads sidebar. (Hey, recs work!) It’s an Australian based literary magazine that offers short stories and essays and more. I clicked on a story at random and was blown away.

Termites (2020) by Neha De Alwis won the 2020 KYD School Writing Prize and I must say, the story is well worth reading!

You are a thief of many things, and about half of those things you keep in your pocket. The rest, the things you can’t hold, you keep in a constantly growing mental inventory.

The story focuses on OCD and was very well written! I’m looking forward to more by this author.

Short Story Review: Blood Brothers by Josie Jaffrey (2021)

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Blood Brothers by Josie Jaffrey

This short story is tied into Jaffrey’s Sovereign and Seekers vampire series. Be sure to check them out!

I really liked this one! Adewale and Alastair are great characters and I’m really curious to learn more about them after this. I think I should probably have read more of the books in the series first (I’ve only read The Gilded King so far, but the rest are on my list!), as I was a little confused by some things, but overall a great read! Definitely got me in the mood for more vampire books. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this series!

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Short Story Review: The Kingdom That Failed by Haruki Murakami, Translated by Jay Rubin (2020)

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The Kingdom That Failed by Haruki Murakami

“To see a splendid kingdom fade away,” it said, “is far sadder than seeing a second-rate republic collapse.”

I’ve never read anything by Murakami and this was definitely a great introduction. I’m not really sure how to describe this one: a man sees someone he used to know and watches the man while remembering how he used to be. It’s quite short, yet engaging and with great prose!

It’s published in The New Yorker if you want to check it out. I definitely recommend giving it a go!

Short Story Review: An Indelible Day (2020)

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An Indelible Day by Cairo Marques (2020)

“We just weren’t compatible. Still, we’re going to exist within one another eternally. We’ve created indelible memories together.”

An Indelible Day is quite an interesting short story that makes for a quick, thought provoking read. The story is divided into three sections and each one is framed around conversations the main character, John C., has with three other people. The main characters are not given last names, only initials, which was an interesting stylistic choice. I think the last time I saw that was in classics, which is cool. The monologues of the characters and the way the story is framed reminded me of older stories, too, like Salinger’s style in Franny and Zooey, just having two characters engaged in a long conversation. It definitely flowed well.

I will say that I would’ve liked a bit more characterisation to really get to know each character and perhaps some backstory, and I do wish it had been expanded a little bit, with perhaps a bit more detail, but overall it made for a very interesting and engaging read.

I received a free ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review. Cross-posted to Goodreads.

Short Story Mini Review: The South Asian Speakers Series Presents the Archeologist and Adventurer Indiana Jones

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I’m awful at keeping up to date with all the different places I find short stories, so I’m glad this one popped up on my Twitter feed because it was a great short read about my favourite archaeologist and makes some very valid criticisms about one of the movies.

The story follows Indiana Jones at a talk with students where he’s confronted with the events of The Temple of Doom and chastised for his behaviour.

Hadn’t every object he’d ever loved finally eluded him, vanishing even further into the vault of history? Quietly he said, “I’ve never put anything in a museum.”

I really love Indiana Jones, but there are so many valid criticisms of the storylines, especially The Temple of Doom, so I appreciated this story. I maybe would have preferred a bit more length, but it’s to the point and well written.

“Can we agree, Indy, that India was a misstep? That you should stick to fighting Nazis?”

Hear hear, fight the Nazis, Dr Jones.

Read it here. 

Short Story Mini Review: Five Arrows (2015)

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Five Arrows by Heinz Insu Fenkl

“Bury me where this arrow falls.” And he let the arrow fly with a loud whoosh of air torn by string and wood, and the arrow blurred high up into the blackness. If Big Uncle had told me then that he had hit the eye of the moon, I would have believed him.

This is quite an evocative short story published in the New Yorker. You can read it here. A young boy, Insu, goes to visit his uncle, who lives in a cave in the forest. When Insu’s friend Yongsu leaves, Insu spends the night with Big Uncle and listens to his stories. Fenkl has a wonderful way with words and the imagery is brilliant. Definitely recommend.