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With a story-telling style (and hints of magic) reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, and populated by darkly flat-affect characters straight out of Patricia Highsmith, this set of short stories is interesting, unusual and intriguingly compelling.

Each of the stories features a story spun around a main protagonist (and in one case, protagonists) who find themselves in a strange or unique situation, not always of their own making, that ends up revealing, in a slow-burn kind of way, a twist or a charming bit of irony.

My favorite, “Lies and Secrets”, is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek story about a man and a woman, each other’s first serious relationship at fifteen years old, meeting unexpectedly after twenty years. Without revealing the plot (no spoilers here), the author has fun with the social one-upmanship that makes us hide our vulnerabilities in ultimately self-defeating posturing.

Other stories include:

• The Prankster – a nasty prankster, who is warned that “people don’t like these silly little jokes. And they won’t like you if you do them”.
• Lucky/ Unlucky – an unlucky twin, who envies his brother as “it always felt that he was just six minutes cooler”.
• There/unthere – a solitary drinker, who may or may not care that “the world produces dots like him” and “just like that, it’s all gone. There, unthere, in one moment”.

A terrific read, I thoroughly enjoyed this little book and like the warning above, felt the ending came much too quickly (is that irony?)

A big thank you to the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

My stop today on the @rararesources #blogtour for @raphaelalexx