Review by Laura Besley of "In the Sweep of the Bay" by Cath Barton

          The gulls sitting on the freshly-painted blue railings flap into the morning sky as one,  
          before peeling off on their individual journeys across the bay, riding the thermals   
          here, swooping down on abandoned chip papers there … The gulls know their
          territory. They stay within the sweep of Morcambe Bay.

- Cath Barton, In the Sweep of the Bay

In the Sweep of the Bay, a novella by Cath Barton, starts in 2009 in the village of Morecambe, Lancashire, where a statue of Eric Morcambe, the British comedian, has been erected. A retired street sweeper takes on the role of part-time cleaner. He watches people, he talks to the tourists and is happy to take their photos. He says: “People are something else; they open your eyes to things you’ve not thought of. They really do.”

At the heart of the story is a married couple, Ted and Rene. Their story starts in the '50s, where they meet at a dance, court for two years and then marry: “His mother got hold of all sorts and put on a wonderful spread, such as they hadn’t seen for years.” The language Barton uses easily conjures up the feel of a bygone era. Ted works for the family ceramics firm, first as an apprentice, but later designing beautiful hand-painted vases. Rene works until she marries, then stops to take care of her husband, the house, and later their two daughters. 

In later chapters there are threads of the story told from different characters’ points of view: Dot and Peg (the daughters), Cecily (the granddaughter), Vincenzo and Henry (who live in Italy); Barton has woven the threads of these seemingly separate stories together so they intertwine and come full circle. 

Cath Barton’s quiet style is perfectly suited to this narrative about a marriage, delicately exploring "all the sadness, and all of the love."


About the reviewer
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, as well as in print and in various anthologies. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020. She tweets @laurabesley

Review by Louise Brown of "Don't Think A Single Thought" by Diana Cambridge

Don’t Think A Single Thought by Diana Cambridge is a captivating book. The main character, Emma, has a successful husband, an apartment in the Hamptons and a flat in Manhattan, on the surface a charmed life, but from the first paragraph we know she is a troubled woman. She is a writer with limited success, struggling with self-doubt, and her life has an aimless quality at the outset of the novel. Her wealthy lifestyle contrasts with a troubled childhood in care and the author presents a complex character to the reader. Right from the start we are asking ourselves about a child, another pupil at her school, who fell over a cliff and died. Her death had a profound effect on Emma and the back story slowly reveals this.  Meanwhile she tells her publisher about her past, and the death of the child. Her zealous publisher, spotting a good "story," encourages her to incorporate it as fiction into the novel she is writing, entitled Manhattan Diary. This leads to dazzling success as a writer, and she enters the bestseller lists. Her success is short-lived with the second novel receiving dire reviews. One critic describes their response to her novel as “"ho cares?” and we watch her struggle with her apparently charmed life. 

The skilful writing puts us on guard about the main character. Throughout the book you learn that the main character's grasp on reality is tenuous and you feel you are watching the events of the novel through a hazy filter. There are several mysterious child deaths and throughout you know that Emma’s version of events is unreliable. As the novel progresses, different versions of the past are presented to us and it has a beguiling mysterious quality to it that keeps you hooked in right to the end. 

The main character is complex and the writing is so skilful you form a bond with her, needing to know what happened in her past, what will happen in her present and how will her life end up? The writing reminded me of Anita Brookner’s novels. The writing is crisp and spare, and throughout is a sense of foreboding. The main character stayed in my mind long after finishing the book, and I recommend it to any reader.


About the reviewer
Louise is taking an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She works as a part-time Solicitor, and started writing at the age of fifty-three, ten months ago. She has had two poems published, one in the Acumen, and is currently working on her first novel.