The Long, Tall Short Stories of Sue Jones

(Amazon UK link)

Earlier this year, we helped our friend Sue Jones to publish her two novels, ‘The Legacy’ and ‘The House where Nobody Lived’ via KDP. More recently, she decided to put her collection of forty-two short stories together and publish them too. I had thoroughly enjoyed hearing a selection of them, over the past couple of years, at our local writing group, so I was very pleased to be able to proof-read and format her ‘Long Tall Short Stories’.

Sue Jones is a talented writer whose skill and imagination takes her into many different genres. Her stories are of quite differing lengths, too. A few are under a thousand words but still manage to tell a good story. Others are two or three thousand words or more, with a bit more development and plot. Some feel well-rounded, others stop a tad more abruptly. One or two, she tells us, are based on real incidents (with all names and details changed, of course) but the majority are from her active imagination.

While I liked all her short stories - which include, as the blurb says, everything from vampires to vicars - a few stand out in my memory as extra special. The delightful ‘Megamoggy’, for instance, is an enormous cat, who manages to fall off a balcony onto a baker’s van. Or there's the memorable church mouse ‘Horace’, who gorges himself at Harvest Festival.

The stories are arranged alphabetically rather than by length or genre. The first short story, ‘A Change of Heart’ is a more typical magazine style short story, about someone who is soon to get married. Then an unexpected letter changes her mind, due to learning something shocking. But even with this fairly standard plot, there’s a somewhat unexpected (and entirely satisfactory) ending.

Some of the stories have a lot of humour in them - when Sue read ‘A Royal Presence’ at our writing group some months ago, for instance, we were all laughing in places. ‘The Last of the Communion Wine’, too, is very amusing - all the more so if read aloud.

But they’re not all light-hearted. Some stories are poignant, some are sad. Some touch on important contemporary issues. And some are just bizarre… it’s an ideal book to dip into, perhaps on holiday, or to read when you just have a few minutes available.

The final story, ‘When the Bough Broke’, is possibly the most poignant of all. It’s quite short, and I found it extremely moving.

All in all, I would recommend this collection highly to anyone, adult or older teenager, who likes quirky, mixed short stories.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews

The House where Nobody Lived (by Sue Jones)

(Amazon UK link)

Sue Jones, a member of my local writing group, was so pleased with the ease of publication via KDP that she asked for our help with publishing her second novel, ‘The House where Nobody Lived’. I had very much enjoyed her first novel, ‘The Legacy’, and felt privileged to read this one in advance of publication, to do the formatting prior to my husband laying it out and uploading it.

This book is very different in style from Sue Jones’ first book. The main character is a man called Jack, recently divorced and extremely likeable. He moves into a house and hears a voice in the next-door back garden. It’s a small child, who says she is called ‘Nobody’. And it’s clear, by the end of the chapter, that this little girl is treated very badly by the adults who she lives with.

Jack slowly tries to unpack boxes and meets some of his neighbours, but when he mentions this unfortunate small child, he is warned off. The occupants of that house are vengeful, he is told, and if he reports them he might find himself in huge trouble. So he’s unsure what to do, his conscience pricked by the pitiful voice, but also not wanting to be the target of attack.

Chapter Two then switches to an entirely different storyline. We meet Esther, a young woman who has been arrested at an airport, caught by sniffer dogs. It’s clear that her passport is fake, and that she’s doing something for a criminal, against her better judgement. We don’t know why until a bit later in the book, but she’s very concerned that she’ll be in serious danger if she tells the truth.

It’s an exciting book, albeit not at all the kind of novel I would usually read. The characterisation of the significant people is good, although some of the ‘bad’ guys were so awful I couldn’t entirely believe in them. There are some scenes of violence sufficiently unpleasant that I wouldn’t suggest a teenager read the book, and some quite shocking events that I wasn’t expecting. A lot of issues are covered, and I found myself a tad confused about details a few times - but that didn’t matter.

As with the author’s first book, the writing is excellent, and the pace such that it was quite difficult to stop reading, in places. Maybe some of the conversation is a tad too extended for my tastes, not really adding to the story or the characterisation. But I’ve noticed that this style is becoming increasingly common in modern novels.

All in all, I would recommend this if you like this genre of book: it would perhaps fall into the ‘romantic thriller’ genre. Available inexpensively in Kindle form as well as paperback.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews

The Legacy (by Sue Jones)

(Amazon UK link)

Sue Jones is a member of the writing group I belong to. She wanted to publish her novels and short stories through Amazon rather than spending possibly years trying to find a suitable publisher. I was privileged to read ‘The Legacy’ in advance, as I helped with the formatting; my husband designed the cover and dealt with the uploading to KDP.

It’s the story of a troubled family. Mandy, the mother, holds them together but her husband Gary has become boorish and rude. They have four sons, and Gary gets on well with three of them. Teenage James is like his father, but quite sensitive too. Ten-year-old Sam adores animals, and six-year-old Luke is outgoing and noisy; he adores his older brothers. But what draws their father to them is that they are all keen on football.

Eight-year-old Tom, however, does not like football. He’s different from his brothers - perhaps he has ADHD; it’s not mentioned. He can’t sit still or concentrate on anything much, and for some reason almost everything he does irritates his father.

The story opens when Mandy wakes from a pleasant dream, and then manages to knock over and break a lamp. She steps on some of the shards, and when she slams the bathroom door she manages to shatter the mirror too. It’s not a good start to the day. And she’s totally fed up with Gary, who is almost like another child.

Mandy works for an elderly lady called Elizabeth. Elizabeth lives in a very large house; her husband was a musician, who died in his eighties. The house is really too big for her, but she has no children, and feels too old to move. Mandy has worked for her as a cleaner and housekeeper for about a year as the story begins, and the two have become friendly.

Tom gets in trouble at school. While Gary is just frustrated, Mandy longs to find something that he’s good at, that will enable him to succeed. It turns out that Tom is musical - surprisingly so, although his father is unimpressed when he discovers this…

It’s the story of a growing friendship between Tom and the elderly Elizabeth, of the unfolding of his unexpected talent. It’s also the story of the breakdown of a marriage. While I normally hope that marriages in novels are going to be salvaged, Gary is such an unpleasant person that I wasn’t rooting for him at all.

The writing is good, the pace just right for the story, and the characterisation excellent. Perhaps Gary is a tad caricatured - he seems to have no redeeming features at all - but Mandy, Elizabeth and Tom are all three-dimensional.  While some of the conversations are perhaps a tad long-winded, they all feel believable.

There are some poignant, even sad scenes, some violence - though not gratuitous - and some ‘strong’ language. But it’s not excessive, and is part of the character of the people concerned. So I wouldn’t suggest anyone under the age of about fifteen read this book. The children (particularly Tom) are important to the plot, but it’s more about Mandy’s struggles in an unrewarding marriage.

Definitely recommended if you like women’s fiction with quite a bit of depth.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews