Gareth Owen (2)

Disclaimer: I received this as an Early Reviewer. No compensation was received other than the chance to read this work.

This book is a set of short stories. Like any story collection, the tales vary some in quality throughout. Overall, though, this was a fast and pleasant read. While some of the stories might have been reordered slightly to make the overall feel of the book smoother, the book in its entirety has a solid feel to it.

Recommended for: those who enjoy short stories; those who enjoy writers who play with perspectives.… (altro)

I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers

A wonderful collection of short stories here from Gareth Owen. From Italian tales of faith, obsession, reconciliation and coincidence, to British stories of a spiralling former rock star, unrequited love and the horror of everything going wrong in trying to complete a simple task, the variation and depth of character that is displayed across twelve very different stories, make this an excellent collection.

And the final, delightful story, 'How I Met My Wife', which seemed on a different trajectory entirely for quite some time, caps it all off nicely.

For a time, I thought this might have been an example of a real-world Alessandra/Franco situation (read 'Oh God What Must I Do?'). The first few stories are told from a female point of view, and are all based in Italy. I made a point of checking the author's name, just to be sure.

Finally, I read this on an iPadAir using Apple's Books software package, and I noticed a number of layout issues: paragraph and line breaks where they shouldn't have been, and quoted speech incorrectly laid out.… (altro)