The Outsiders Anthology

June 5, 2015 By Leave a Comment

UT
The Outsiders by Stephen Bacon, James Everington, Gary Fry, V.H. Leslie, and Rosanne Rabinowitz
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Genre: Suspense/Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (98 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

a Suspense Thriller / Horror featuring the gated community of Priory, with its cult leader Charles Erich and his followers, including those who want to overthrow him, and those who’ll do anything for him. Is that which they worship the true evil, or does evil reside in them?

Inside Priory awaits a lot more than meets the eye. The people might seem friendly, but only because their enigmatic leader Charles Erich accepts nothing less.

The cottages within this gated community seem simple enough, and even though what lurks beneath them is more ancient than mankind itself, can anything be more evil than the people worshipping it?

If you dare follow this UK invasion of five prime authors as they each tell their own story of the people living behind Priory’s steel gates and high walls, you’ll quickly find yourself an outsider, as well.

Stories by Stephen Bacon, James Everington, Gary Fry, V.H. Leslie, and Rosanne Rabinowitz.
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The Priory. A community of one mind and purpose. A place of order, commitment, peace, and service. A perfect world, building on mind shattering secrets from beyond the pale. Enter…if you dare.

Anything can happen behind a security wall, especially when what lurks behind it is so well-hidden.

Lee introduced the reader to this secretive community in “The Subprime.” As a man stuck in a job he finds morally objectionable, he was ready to turn in his resignation when his boss invited him to Priory for an sociable evening. While I figured out the twist early on, it was still worthwhile to see how everything unfolded because the author spent so much time setting it all up precisely.

“Impossible Colours” followed a police officer named Michala Bruce as she attempted to find out what happened to a man who had recently moved to Priory. Her perspective as someone who lived elsewhere was fascinating, although the inclusion of more than one narrator was distracting for something this length. Had it only been written in Michala’s voice, this would have been my favorite tale of them all.

What I found most intriguing about “Stolen from the Sea” was how much time it spent on character development. No one is entirely good or evil, so it was interesting to get to know certain characters from a point of view that I hadn’t considered yet. It’s hard to discuss this in any detail without giving away spoilers, but I was pleased with how much time the author spent showing why and how these individuals made certain decisions.

Petra and Bernard’s shifting relationship as a newly retired couple in “Precious Things” piqued my curiosity. It could have easily been expanded into a full-length novel, although it worked equally well as a short work. I also liked how the plot provided a few more hints about what was going on, especially since some of them were introduced so subtly.

There were a few things about “Meat, Motion, and Light” that I had trouble understanding. Claudia grew up in this community and has begun to question some of the things she experienced during those years. Some of the memories she shared with the reader seemed to contradict what we’d been taught earlier. I was never quite sure if I’d misunderstood the rules earlier or if Claudia’s interpretation of them was supposed to catch me off guard. It would have been helpful to have more details about this as I was otherwise fascinated by her account of what happened.

All of these stories are set in the same universe and involve the same general group of characters. I should note that the introduction to this anthology, “Welcome to Priory,” contained some spoilers. While it provided valuable information about how and why Priory was first formed, I probably wouldn’t have read it until I’d finished “Stolen from the Sea” had I known ahead of time that it would giving me so many hints about what was to come.

The Outsiders is a mystery that knows how to flirt heavily with science fiction. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys either genre.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

A Flaw in the Mechanism: Out of Time 2 by Jeffery Martin Botzenhart

June 3, 2015 By Leave a Comment

FLAW
A Flaw in the Mechanism: Out of Time 2 by Jeffery Martin Botzenhart
Publisher: Luminosity Publishing
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical
Length: Short Story (55 pages)
Heat Level: Sensual
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

What would you do for the one you love…when time runs out?

There are some promises that are devastating to keep after a heart has been broken. One such promise made out of his undying love for Victoria sends Trevor on a journey that will lead him across the world. Yet where to begin?

His unexpected discovery of an unburned medical journal found at the Winterhust Estate sends Trevor onward to London. Seeking the consultation of a doctor who is listed on several of the pages, Trevor learns of a conspiracy within the medical community that forced the doctor to flee England.
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With the aid of two people familiar with the doctor he seeks, Trevor embarks on a journey that takes him to the unspoiled plains of East Africa. It is there where he experiences how beauty and danger collide…and at times can be one in the same. It is also there where his promise is fulfilled while other promises from both the past and present are revealed with devastating consequences.

No one can deny the power of love, but that power is about to be stretch to its limits.

Trevor’s character development was phenomenal. As much as I liked him in the last book, I became an even bigger fan of him in this one. He’s changed quite a bit since I first met him, but all of Trevor’s personal growth makes sense given everything he’s been through so far. Some of my favorite scenes involved this character remembering those previous experiences and changing his behavior as a result of what he learned from them. They were incredibly well done.

The places Trevor visited during the course of his adventures were etched vividly into my imagination. One of the things I appreciate the most about this author’s writing style is how much thought he puts into his word selection. Mr. Botzenhart can sketch out what a room looks, sounds, and feels like in a handful of sentences, yet his descriptions are so complete that I can see exactly what he’s talking about when I close my eyes. This is a big part of the reason why I get so excited about checking out new stories from him as soon as they’re ready.

There’s something to be said for conversational dialogue. The other major reason why I enjoy Mr. Botzenhart’s stories so much is that his characters speak in such organic and relatable ways. Science fiction content aside, their conversations sound like something I’d overhear while walking down the street as opposed to something that bubbled up in the author’s mind before he wrote it down.

This is the second tale in the Out of Time series. While it can technically be read out of order or on its own, I strongly recommend picking up Clockwork Heart first. There are certain parts of the character and plot development that will be especially thrilling for readers who are already familiar with this universe.

Everyone needs to read A Flaw in the Mechanism. Simply put, it was perfect!

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Pride of Poppies: Modern GLBTQI Fiction of the Great War Anthology

June 1, 2015 By 3 Comments

POPPIES
A Pride of Poppies: Modern GLBTQI Fiction of the Great War by Julie Bozza, Barry Brennessel, Charlie Cochrane, Sam Evans, Lou Faulkner, Adam Fitzroy, Wendy C. Fries, Z. McAspurren, Eleanor Musgrove, and Jay Lewis Taylor
Publisher: Manifold Press
Genre: Historical
Length: Full Length (247 pages)
Heat Level: Sensual
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Modern GLBTQI fiction of the Great War

Ten authors – in thirteen stories – explore the experiences of GLBTQI people during World War I. In what ways were their lives the same as or different from those of other people?
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A London pub, an English village, a shell-hole on the Front, the outskirts of Thai Nguyen city, a ship in heavy weather off Zeebrugge, a civilian internment camp … Loves and griefs that must remain unspoken, unexpected freedoms, the tensions between individuality and duty, and every now and then the relief of recognition. You’ll find both heartaches and joys in this astonishing range of thought-provoking stories.

They say that tough times bring out a person’s true colors. If this is true, I want to meet all of these characters.

Skip ahead and read “War Life” first. It followed a brother who enlisted in the war effort as well as the older sister he left behind at home. They both had introspective personalities that work well with this subject matter. I was especially interested in seeing how similarly these siblings described the world around them despite living in radically different environments at the moment. It left me me yearning for more and could easily have been expanded into a full-length novel!

There were a few contributions that I would have liked to see expanded into something a little longer so that the character in the would have had more time to grow. All of them were good stories that I deeply enjoyed reading, they simply needed some additional attention. “A Rooted Sorrow” was a good example of this. It involved a woman’s adjustment to life after the war, although there were several other characters competing for the spotlight in the plot. All of the background information about them was interesting, but it took me quite a while to figure out who was actually the protagonist. This might have worked better as a longer work so that more time could be spent exploring the relationships between everyone in what sounded like an incredibly warm and close-knit community.

“The Man Left Behind” showed how Henry’s life changed as a result of the war. He wasn’t allowed to fight in it, so he had to find another way to contribute. This was yet another tale that I was sad to see end. Henry was so well written that I desperately wanted to see what happened to him during the rest of his life. His personality burst through the plot he’d been given in the best way possible. While I don’t know if the author is planning on releasing a sequel, I’d be thrilled to read it if she does.

A Pride of Poppies: Modern GLBTQI Fiction of the Great War is a beautiful collection that I’d recommend to anyone who has even the slightest interest in World War I or GLBTQI fiction.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Peach and the Poppy by Caesar J.M. Kauftheil

June 1, 2015 By Leave a Comment

PEACH
The Peach and the Poppy by Caesar J.M. Kauftheil
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: Contemporary, GLBT
Length: Full Length (180 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

After an unpleasant breakup with her girlfriend, Poppy goes on a solo trip to Paris. Her first morning out she encounters a beautiful stranger, but it proves to be the only good part of the day. Though she tries to appreciate the beautiful city she’s come to escape in for a time, Poppy can’t help but feel something is lacking.

The traditional proof, however, indicates that the present increase may be no more than a dead cat bounce. canada super viagra Yes, this is about sexual issues in human ordine cialis on line http://secretworldchronicle.com/2019/05/ lives. For instance, treating high blood pressure and diabetes in a group of more generika viagra than 4,500 men. Sometimes patient wakes up from sleep link sildenafil cheapest price due to their fingers are numb. When her best friend suggests what she needs is a fling to clear away her ex for good, Poppy approaches the beautiful woman from before to be her tour guide for the duration of her vacation, but as the trip draws all too quickly to an end, Poppy realizes that in seeking a cure for heartache, she may instead have just made the problem worse…

Anything can happen during a vacation.

There’s something to be said for a romance that develops slowly. I appreciated how slowly this part of the plot unfolded. The main character developed her crush quickly, but her reasons for feeling that way were reasonable and genuine. Instant infatuations work best for me as a reader when the characters involved in them seem to be aware of how much time has actually passed and that they don’t yet know everything about each other. This tale fulfilled every single one of these requirements. That made it really easy for me to hope that Rochelle and Poppy would end up together.

The flashbacks to Poppy’s earlier relationships were interesting, but they happened so frequently that they distracted my attention from the main plot. They also made me wonder why the author was spending so much time showing the reader what happened in the past. It would have been helpful to have more clues about why these flashbacks were so important to what was currently going on in the main character’s life.

All of the French food in this story sounded amazing. Including small details like what a real croissant should taste like or how the portion sizes of certain dishes differ from what someone in the United States would probably expect to see on their plate was a good decision. Not only did it make me hungry, it made it really easy to immerse myself in what Poppy was experiencing.

The Peach and the Poppy is a good choice for anyone who is in the mood for a modern romance novel that just might sweep them off their feet.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Catherine Dickens: Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta

May 25, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Catherine Dickens
Catherine Dickens: Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Historical
Length: Full Length (212 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Outside the Magic Circle is part fiction and part fact; less fiction and more fact.

Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth on 2nd April, 1836, when he was an upcoming writer and reporter. Soon after marriage, he tasted spectacular success with The Pickwick Papers and in ten years, was the foremost writer of his time.

Catherine was the mother of his ten children, his hostess, she accompanied him on his American tour.

Yet, twenty-one years after they wed, Charles Dickens very publicly separated from her, denouncing her as an unfit mother and wife. He removed her from his home, his life, and the lives of his children. He never saw her again, not even when their son, Walter, died at the age of twenty-three in faraway India.
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His allegations about his wife and his unhappy marriage were works of fiction, as successful and enduring as the rest of his works. The real cause of the separation was an eighteen-year-old actress, Ellen Ternan, who later became his mistress.

On her deathbed, Catherine gave her daughter letters Charles had written to her and said, “Give these to the British Museum, that the world may know he loved me once.”

Outside the Magic Circle is a fictionalized account of Catherine’s life after she was plucked out of her familiar world and thrown to the wolves, as it were, by the exemplary Charles Dickens. It is told in her voice; sometimes reminiscing, at other times baffled, confused, hurt, angry. It has her tears, her love, and her quest for the meaning of her life, and marriage.

Love is supposed to last forever. What happens when it doesn’t?

When I first picked up this book, I genuinely didn’t understand why Catherine would have remained so quiet about the downfall of her marriage while she was alive. Her character development in this tale was so thorough, though, that her refusal to defend herself soon made sense to me. What I appreciated the most about it was how intricately Ms. Datta wove these revelations into the plot. They showed up exactly when they were needed, but they were introduced so seamlessly that I didn’t notice what the author was doing until much later on in the story. Bravo!

The cast of characters was really large. I had trouble keeping track of who everyone was and how they were connected to each other because there were so many of them. The fact that some of the younger people were named after older relatives made it even trickier to sort out everything. It would have been helpful to have a family tree or a basic list of who was who, especially in the earlier chapters when certain relationships hadn’t been made clear yet. Not having this information briefly made it awkward for me to settle into what was otherwise an engrossing read.

Mark Twain once said, “a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Some of the most interesting scenes in this novel explore what happens after a juicy rumor is assumed to be true by society. It was fascinating to see how little human nature has changed over the last one hundred and fifty years or so. We may wear blue jeans now instead of ball gowns or top hats, but people today are just as susceptible to being the victim of gossip as they were when Catherine was alive.

Catherine Dickens: Outside the Magic Circle should definitely be read by anyone who loves historical fiction that was inspired by real events.

Filed Under: Other, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Off Book by Jessica Dall

May 22, 2015 By Leave a Comment

book
Off Book by Jessica Dall
Publisher: REUTS Publications
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (181 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Twenty-year-old Eloise has learned all she can from the School, where characters live until joining their novels. No one knows genre and plot structure better than her, but despite her knowledge, she’s yet to be assigned to her own story. All her friends are off starting their lives with their authors—and if Eloise doesn’t get assigned soon, she’ll fade away, forgotten by all.

When she is offered a job at the Recording Office, instead, she takes the chance to write her own future. Suddenly living among the post-storied, Eloise meets Barnaby Fitzwilliam, a former romance novel hero who hasn’t lost any of his in-story charm. But just as their relationship begins to get serious, Eloise is sucked into a novel she was never meant to be part of, turning everything they thought they knew about their world upside down.
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Now, caught where the only rules are made by authors and truly anything is possible, Eloise must find her way back home—or her life might end before she ever gets the chance to live it.

It’s hard to sit by and watch other people find their destinies. Eloise has been gracious about it for a long time, but when will it be her turn?

There were quite a few plot twists that I didn’t see coming. Ms. Dall’s vivid imagination worked really well with the premise of this story, especially once the characters settled into their roles and began reacting to everything that was happening to them. What I appreciated the most about all of these surprises was how well they worked with the plot as well as everything I was able to figure out about the personalities of the characters involved in them.

Speaking of the characters, I would have really liked to see more time spent developing their personalities. I like Eloise and Barnaby, but I finished the final chapter without ever having a clear understanding of what it would be like to be in the same room with them. Would they be talkative or quiet? How would they react to disappointing news? What kind of response could I expect from them if they were angry? Had even some of my questions about them been answered, this book would have easily earned a much higher rating.

One of my favorite things to see in a possible romantic subplot is a strong friendship. If two characters have enough in common that I could see them being best friends, I will almost certainly root for them to end up together. It took a while for the romantic elements of this tale to fully appear, but I was glad the author took her time to show the audience why the people involved in that storyline might make such a good match. It kept my attention and made it hard to stop reading.

Off Book was incredibly clever. I’d recommend it to anyone has ever wondered what characters really do when an author stops paying attention to them.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Dawn of Mars by Jeff Ferry

May 5, 2015 By Leave a Comment

DAWN
The Dawn of Mars by Jeff Ferry
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Full Length (298 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Revolution has come to Mars. Max Lupine has been secretly creating a virus to pacify and enslave the populace. However, a mining accident triggers a premature release of the virus and sets off a pandemic that causes the majority of the populace to become mindless killers. Beverly Gibson, lead scientist of the Delta Dig, tries to rally a resistance not only to battle the infected that roam the populated living domes of Mars, but to stop Max Lupine from consolidating his despotic power. Beverly is assisted by Edgar Lourdes who is the only man on the planet with the ability to diagnose and combat the virus. He must discover how the virus was created and how to save the millions of people living on Mars. Recently arrived Thomas Stargell must battle across the Martian landscape to find Beverly’s resistance group and help them break Max Lupine’s control of the communications on Mars. He must attempt to contact Earth and hope they will come to the aid of the beleaguered Martians. When Lupine discovers how to control the infected the stage is set for a final showdown to find out who will control the future of Mars. Beverly’s rebels and Lupine’s forces meet in a climactic planet wide showdown that will cost many their lives and force the people of Mars to become revolutionaries or find themselves under the control of a madman.

It isn’t wise to start a revolution at the same time that a pandemic is spreading. Or is it?

This pill should be swig by men who want to prevent erectile dysfunction or improve their sexual health.Its effect will stay in your system all throughout the day which is unlikely with other brands.A high percentage of consumers claims that Zenerx has improve their overall sexual health. viagra tablets in india It is the cialis cost symptom that the medicine can work to benefit a user. One of the tadalafil shop problems that the males are quite ignorant about the sexual disease. It is found that men taking anti-impotency medicine don’t suffer from hormonal heart stress. cialis tablets 20mg wouroud.com Some of my favorite passages in this book were the ones that described how the Martian cities were laid out. The descriptions of them were so thorough that I genuinely felt as though I’d just finished walking up and down their streets. They were perfect setting for this tale given all of the changes their buildings have seen as one human generation gave way to the next.

It took a while for me to get into the story because so much time was spent introducing the characters and describing what life on Mars was like for average people. While I appreciated all of these details later on, including so many of them in the beginning did slow down the pacing of it. I had to plough through the first fifty pages or so before the plot picked up.

The explanation for the origin of the virus was well done. It fit all of the hints about where it might have come from that were dropped early on, but it still managed to surprise me in a few places. I also enjoyed the time that Mr. Ferry spent telling the audience where it came from and showing why it was so dangerous.

I would have liked to see more time spent on character development. It was hard to keep everyone straight because there were so many of them running around. Their personalities weren’t given an opportunity to develop to the point where I could tell the difference between two people based on how they behaved or spoke. Even knowing a few key facts about the most important characters would have made it much easier for me to remember who was who.

There’s definitely something to be said for intelligent protagonists. One of the things I was able to figure out about the main characters is that most of them were smart. They tended to be fairly cautious in new situations. That isn’t something that happens too often in this genre, so I was pleasantly surprised by how Mr. Ferry wrote those sections.

The Dawn of Mars is a good choice for anyone who likes science fiction that is heavily plot driven.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Ghost of Death by Chrys Fey

May 5, 2015 By Leave a Comment

GHOSTS
Ghost of Death by Chrys Fey
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (41 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Jolie Montgomery, a twenty-one-year-old woman, wakes up in an alley next to her corpse. She has no memories of her murder or the night she died. She didn’t even see the killer’s face before he or she took her life. Wanting justice, Jolie seeks answers in the only way a ghost can…by stalking the lead detective on the case.

Avrianna Heavenborn is determined to find the person responsible for a young woman’s death. She gets closer to the killer’s identity with every clue she uncovers, and Jolie is with her every step of the way.
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But if they don’t solve her murder soon, Jolie will be an earth-bound spirit forever.

Everyone dies with some kind of unfinished business.

Jolie was such a fascinating protagonist. Her reaction to her death gave me a clear understanding of the smart, witty person she had been in life and continued to be in the afterlife, especially once she realized what she was capable of as a ghost. There were a few times when I giggled while reading her internal monologue, and that definitely wasn’t something I was expecting to do given the serious subject matter of this tale!

There were a few things about the murderer that I never quite understood. I briefly wondered if I’d accidentally stumbled into book two or three of a series based on how this character was written, although after researching it online this didn’t actually seem to be the case after all. It would have been helpful to have more details about this particular aspect of the plot so that certain pieces of information would be easier to pick up on.

The dialogue was well done. There isn’t a great deal of room in a story of this length for exposition, so tucking it into ordinary conversations was a smart idea. Doing it this way gave me precisely the right amount of background information about the characters I was most curious about. At a few different points during the dialogue I wanted to know more about what the characters were discussing. They provided enough information about what was currently going on, but they also whetted my appetite for more. While I don’t know if the author is planning to write a sequel, there is certainly plenty of room here to do so.

Ghost of Death is a good choice for anyone who likes the paranormal side of science fiction.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

King Arthur’s Last Knight by D.P. Hewitt

May 4, 2015 By Leave a Comment

KING
King Arthur’s Last Knight by D.P. Hewitt
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short Story (45 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Jim Dunn was comfortably settled into the autumn of his life, with his wife Abby. Or so he thought, until the day Jill Francent hired him to build a library in her Victorian fixer-upper. By the time he’d finished building the bookshelves and helping her with miscellaneous home repairs, he’d fallen head-over-heels in love.

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Anyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship has faced temptation at some point. Whether it’s better to ignore it or to face it directly remains to be seen, but either way Jim can’t forget that it exists.

Jim’s character development was superb. His honorable intentions were etched into every single scene, If anything, they grew stronger as he became more attached to his new friend. Seeing him wrestle with his crush on Jill only made me like him more because of how determined he was to stick to what he believed was the only moral response to those feelings.

The friendship between Jim and Jill was wonderful. My favorite scenes were the ones where he puttered around her house fixing things while she told him stories about the life she led before she moved to town. There was so much warmth and kindness in their conversations that I couldn’t stop reading. It felt like I was sitting in a quiet corner of Jill’s house watching everything unfold instead of reading a tale about two fictional characters.

What really made me fall in love with this book, though, was how it ended. It was an absolutely perfect fit for the tone and themes that had been established earlier. As I approached the final pages, I wanted to know what happened while at the same time also dreading the reality of saying goodbye to characters I’d come to care about so much.

King Arthur’s Last Knight is the best story I’ve read so far in 2015. It’s a must-read!

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Almira and the Backward Family by Eugenio Negro

May 4, 2015 By 1 Comment

AMIRA
Almira and the Backward Family by Eugenio Negro
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical
Length: Short Story (52 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

During the grinding struggle of gold rush-era California, a nine year-old girl learns a secret that sets her on a path to revenge. Her imagination and lack of education drive her and her family to an unavoidable conclusion. Her story is a western without romance and without honor.

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Almira was such an eerie child. The scenes that involved her interacting with the world around here were full of offbeat moments. She was written to come across as the kind of girl that flies under the radar of most adults. This was the biggest reason why I was so fascinated by her, as it was hard at first to imagine why anyone would overlook what made her so special. The slow process of figuring out why this was so made it hard to put this tale down.

This story spent a great deal of time jumping from one narrator to the next. It was confusing at times to adjust to yet another character’s take on what was happening because their points of view were so different from one another. This technique would have worked better in a full-length novel that had the time to explore why everyone reacted to certain events the way they did. There simply wasn’t enough space to divulge that kind of information to the audience, and it did affect how I related to the characters as well as the transitions between their perspectives.

The descriptions of the shack Almira and her family lived in were incredibly vivid. I can’t imagine trying to do everything this girl’s mother had to do to keep her family fed and happy in such a tiny house and with three young children underfoot. Spending so much time showing what it’s like to living in such a cramped environment was a smart decision. It made the rest of the plot even more compelling.

I’d recommend Almira and the Backward Family to anyone in the mood for something out of the ordinary.

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