Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories," ed. Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor

At first glance, High Spirits appears to be an anthology united by a simple premise: stories in which alcohol plays a central role. Yet what soon becomes apparent is that this is far less a book about drink than it is about the people who drink, and the complicated lives that unfold around them. 

Stevens' and Taylor's comprehensive introduction is a critical essay in itself and hugely informative, in which they argue that "drunkenness is itself often a story," complete with a "beginning ... a middle ... and an end." It is a perceptive observation, for throughout, alcohol is rarely the subject itself. Rather, it becomes the catalyst through which loneliness, desire, memory, grief and hope are revealed.  

The anthology brings together an impressive range of contemporary writers, including both editors, Louis de Bernières, Jenn Ashworth, Alison Moore, Bethan Roberts and Desmond Barry, each bringing a distinctive voice and treatment of the premise. Some stories are comic, others unsettling; some quietly elegiac, others darkly surreal. 

One of its greatest strengths is its refusal to moralise. Drink is neither glamourised nor condemned. Instead, it’s presented as part of ordinary experience: a celebration, a habit, an escape, often a consolation, sometimes the beginning of connection and, more pointedly, the cause of its collapse. The emotional range is striking, allowing humour to sit comfortably beside vulnerability and loss. Jenn Ashworth's "Jackie Kennedy and the Widow" offers an unflinching meditation on grief, while Michael Stewart's "Painting the Walls White" explores memory and disorientation through themes of forgetting and losing one's way. Melanie Whipman's "Tasting Notes" provides another distinctive voice, demonstrating how drink can become less a subject than a lens through which relationships and identity are examined.

What emerges is a portrait of contemporary life in all its contradictions. These are stories of imperfect lives, where moments of celebration sit uneasily alongside loneliness, regret and longing. Shared drinks become occasions for confession, confrontation and reconciliation; solitary ones speak of absence and loss. Throughout, alcohol functions not as the subject but as a catalyst, bringing into sharp relief those fragile aspects of ourselves we usually keep hidden. 

It’s easy to see why High Spirits won the 2019 Saboteur Award for Best Anthology. It matures beautifully as it unfolds. Individual stories possess their own distinct flavour, yet together they create something richer than the sum of their parts. Like a conversation that grows more candid as the evening wears on, these stories remain in the mind long after the final shot, inviting readers back for the richness of their voices and the truths they quietly reveal about what it is to be both human and fallible. Intoxicating stuff. 

About the reviewer
Dr Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, researcher and lecturer. His interests include dystopian literature, queer studies, children’s fiction and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a wide range of print and electronic media, and fiction titles he recently worked on as commissioning editor have won regional readers’ and publishers’ awards. His debut novel, Sisters of the Pentacle, was published by Hermitage Press in 2022, and his first non-fiction title, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity was published by The History Press (June 2026), to great acclaim.

Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "The Language of Now" by Anne Caldwell

Anne Caldwell’s The Language of Now is a collection of prose poems that moves quietly but insistently through memory, landscape and the fragile textures of everyday life. Rooted in a northern sense of place, the book also engages with illness, ecological unease and the emotional afterlife of recent years.

Caldwell has become one of the most assured contemporary practitioners of the prose poem, and this form suits her especially well. These pieces are compact but spacious, lyrical without becoming vague. They unfold in paragraphs that seem at first conversational, then deepen into something more meditative. Her work returns repeatedly to bogs, backstreets, moorland, weather and overlooked urban edges, yet these are never simply settings. They are charged spaces where memory, vulnerability and the more-than-human world meet.

Caldwell’s restraint is one of the collection’s greatest strengths. She lets emotion gather around an image until it becomes quietly affecting. In "Wasp’s Nest," the speaker listens for "the ragged edges of our lives," a phrase that captures much of the collection’s mood: vulnerability, endurance and the sense that contemporary life often feels slightly frayed. In "Widdop Gate, High Summer," the moorland is described as "egg-shell delicate," and later as "a map of the whole world in miniature." These small phrases open outward with surprising force.

Some of the most moving poems connect strongly with questions of class, culture and language. "Boundary Lane, 1974" in particular stirs that recognition. Its backward glance towards a childhood street, and towards the social world carried in place and speech, suggests how deeply early surroundings shape us. Caldwell’s attention to ordinary language and remembered environments prompts a nostalgic return to childhood: to voices, habits and local textures that once seemed fixed. What these poems understand so well is that growing into the present often means letting go of much that was once familiar in order to make way for the new. 

The title poem suggests another dimension of the collection’s thinking. Caldwell writes that the language of the present moment "now drifts away like a driftwood smile … or a Spring moon waxing and waning." These images capture the book’s underlying concern with impermanence: the sense that language, memory and even identity shift continually with time.

Elsewhere the emotional register deepens into something more intimate. In "Lost Daughter," the line "I wrote a letter: Dearest Daughter, how I longed for you. To hold your butter-coloured toes in my hands" carries a tenderness that is both personal and universal. The image is simple, yet it holds an entire emotional landscape within it. 

What emerges from The Language of Now is a poetics of attention. These prose poems do not seek dramatic revelation. Instead they offer something quieter and more enduring: a way of seeing the ordinary world with renewed sensitivity. In a literary culture that often rewards urgency and noise, Caldwell’s work reminds us of the value of patience, listening and careful noticing. This is a subtle, moving collection that stays with the reader long after the final page, and invites return, offering a brief but beautifully crafted space for quiet reflection.

About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, post-doctoral researcher and lecturer. His interests include speculative fiction, queer studies, children’s fiction and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in print and electronic form. He recently published his debut children’s novel, Sisters of the Pentacle (2022), and his work as commissioning editor resulted in two titles winning prestigious regional awards. His first non-fiction title, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity, is due to be published by The History Press (June 2026).

You can read more about The Language of Now by Anne Caldwell on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Joe Bedford of "We Were Very Merry" by Susan Furber

When I interviewed novelist Susan Furber on her debut The Essence of an Hour, she described to me her central character’s obsession with ‘living a life worthy of fiction’ (you can read the full interview here). It is an impulse I recognise, not just in the way that as readers we are challenged by the disordered tedium of everyday life, but as human beings desperate for the pattern and meaning of narrative. In Furber’s sequel We Were Very Merry, drama grows from those same deep-seated roots. As her world – the world of American expatriates in postwar Europe – is rebuilt from the rubble, so do the characters who populate it rebuild their altered selves from the pieces of our shared literary heritage. Their struggles are those found in Fitzgerald, Hemingway, McCullers – aspiration and apathy, compulsion and paralysis, nostalgia and regret. The way that they love and hate, as well as the way they stomp carelessly through a shattered world, reminds me of the ‘literariness’ of a performed life. 

To live in a ‘literary’ way is to combine the personal journey of free thought and adventure with the public performance of describing those thoughts, poeticising that adventure. For Lillie Carrigan, the protagonist of both The Essence of an Hour and We Were Very Merry, the literary performance of her life is by turns curated and chaotic. The continued grappling between the person she was bred to be and the new person she is creating is done in public and draws in all those around her. Just as with the history of world events that is being rewritten around her, Lillie is caught in the process of rewriting the events that have brought her to this stage of life, to this particular personhood. 

Furber’s achievement with We Were Very Merry lies precisely in placing Lillie’s literary nature under the eye of scrutiny. Lillie Carrigan is, like Holden Caulfield, situated in such a way that even while we, as readers, hang above her in judgement, we do so in a way that penetrates the most complex and disordered nuances of her experience, those that are not just of fiction and its ordered narratives but of life itself. And in doing so, we are encouraged, as with so much of the great literature to which Furber pays homage, to understand, appreciate and practise grace.

About the reviewer
Joe Bedford is an author from Doncaster, UK. His short stories have been published widely and are available to read here. His debut novel A Bad Decade for Good People was released by Parthian Books in June 2023. You can read a review of it on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Victoria Delderfield of "The Former Boy Wonder" by Robert Graham

Consider the adages: Fifty is the new forty! If you haven’t grown up by the time you’re fifty you don’t need to! Or, my favourite, from David Bowie: “Ageing is the extraordinary process of becoming who you should have been.” Mid-life is the time to regain a positive sense of oneself, explore one’s interests and generally make the most of your remaining innings … But what if mid-life feels more like hitting a dead wall? When the pillars of marriage, children and career begin to crack and possibly crumble. This is the dilemma facing Peter Duffy, protagonist in Robert Graham’s playful and extraordinarily well-observed ‘coming-of-old-age’ novel, The Former Boy Wonder.

Former music journalist, Peter, is confronting humankind’s fundamental question, that of purpose: “If time is now limited, is this how I want to spend it?” Pushing fifty, Pete wonders if his choices so far have been satisfying or sacrificial, courageous or cowardly. If he’d acted differently at key junctures, would he be happier at life’s mid-point? The monsoon of longing that unravels is highly relatable, whatever your age. This is a book with enormous heart, cloaked in wit and wry intertextuality.

For Peter, the re-appearance of his first love, Sanchia Page, triggers a quest – part fairytale, part DC Comics - to re-write his narrative, tear up unworkable plot lines, change the genre of his life from tragedy to romance and start again at the beginning. (Imagine Peter as a middle-aged Billy Fisher, the fantasist who prefers his "imaginary country" in Billy Liar). To do this, Peter first has to remember everything correctly and that, of course, isn’t easy. Memories are slippery and can morph with time. A look, a gesture, a decision can all be remembered wrongly, even misinterpreted. Peter admits, “I may not be capable of summoning up the true past … I’m looking for truth here.” That truth, about himself and his actions – when finally grasped – might just be the making of Peter Duffy, aged forty nine and three quarters.

About the reviewer
Victoria Delderfield is author of The Secret Mother. Her website is here.

You can read more about The Former Boy Wonder by Robert Graham on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Lauren M Foster of "Little Quakes Every Day" by Caroline Hardaker

Little Quakes Every Day is Caroline Hardaker’s first full-length poetry collection. The rich and varied poems are divided into three parts, each of which address different aspects of the human experience and our interconnectedness with nature.

The poems in the first part, Histories, span millennia and explore the history, folklore and mythology that has shaped our understanding of the world around us. They encompass figures as diverse as Medusa in a poem of the same name, and Mary Anning in the poem 'Pterosaur.' Hardaker’s gentle humour is evident in 'Afternoon Tea with the Millers,; about Thomas Edison and his wife and their secret code:

          Poor over-affectionate Edison! You’ve addled his brain, Mina,
          he touches you insistently. The muse has made of him a mute!

The second part, Discoveries, primarily addresses the natural world. This section contains my personal favourite, 'On Opening a Love Note Delivered by a Snail,' a playful narrative from an infatuated mushroom to their beloved:

          I’ve heard you pulse your hyphae-strings many times,
          tripping out a melody for my ‘shroomy ears to hear.
          I sang back every night to your fruiting body, gills rippling.

In Inventions, the third part of the collection, Hardaker delves into technology and the physical universe – including what we cannot perceive by eye. A few of the poems, such as 'Sun 2.0,' could be considered science fiction. She provides an empathic interpretation of scientific processes, for example, in 'What we can learn from thermodynamics,' where she successfully applies the concept of entropy to the human condition and its limitations:

           But this road. We’ve been on it before
           We can’t go back to the apartment years, the parties
           the parks. We’re heading for an absolute zero.

I liked Hardaker’s use of senses and language choice, especially her use of scientific terms. Sometimes the poems seem almost chant-like, akin to Beat poetry or Patti Smith. She displays her playful inclinations with experiments with shape and form – the collection incorporates a prose poem and several experimental works. I greatly enjoyed the poems in Little Quakes Every Day. Hardaker has an original, impressive voice and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

About the reviewer
Lauren M Foster is a graduate of the MA Creative Writing at the University of Leicester and has been published in Ink Pantry, DIY Poets, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Leicester and more. She performs her work on a regular basis and plays drum-kit in a garage-punk band The Cars that Ate Paris, sometimes combining the two, which is as difficult as it sounds.

You can read more about Caroline Hardaker's Little Quakes Every Day on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Karen Rust of "High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories" ed. Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor

 

Short story collections didn’t feature in my reading universe until recently, and it’s been a revelation to find them as entertaining as a novel, albeit in a different way. Take High Spirits – it kicks off with a fascinating introduction leading us through the labyrinth of links between alcohol and writing: from Dionysus to Chaucer, the tradition of drinking songs and poems and onto a legion list of writers who owe much to their favourite tipple. The description of short story writer Brendan Behan as ‘the drinker with writing problems’ proper tickled me. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s in an industrial town, alcohol has been a constant backdrop to the highs, lows and drama of my own life, so there’s much to identify with in the introduction along with literary connections I’d never considered before.

The eighteen stories that follow made me laugh, cry, cringe and reflect on alcohol’s power to alter us. The façade and fragility of relationships is often highlighted, but there is hope and comedy too. There are some writers here who I’ve heard of and read before such as Louis de Bernières, Jonathan Taylor and Hannah Stevens, but many who I’d not come across and that’s the joy of a collection like this. Jenn Ashworth fair took my breath away with her hyper-real portrayal of the messiness of grief in ‘Jackie Kennedy and the Widow,’ so now I have a new favourite author to check out.

Short stories are by their nature, er, short and intense and often leave you thinking about the characters and situation long after you’ve finished reading. It’s a different experience to reading a novel. Like the difference between downing a tray of shots versus drinking a pitcher of beer. Sometimes we need the free abandon of shots. I’d definitely recommend this book for established short story fans and newbies alike. Enjoy, and cheers!


About the reviewer
Karen Rust is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She's a Lead Writer for Writing East Midlands, a freelance biographer for StoryTerrace and has work published in various literary magazines including Mooky Chick, Ellipsiszine and Inkpantry. She's currently working on a YA novel for her dissertation and makes music with Yodaclub. This review was first published on her blog here. 


You can read another review, by Jon Wilkins, of High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Jon Wilkins of "High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories," ed. Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor

I have seen High Spirits advertised on social media for months and had always thought its sub title was A Round of Drinking Songs. A bit bold I thought, but I do enjoy a good song. So without reading the blurb, I assumed there would be plenty to choose from! Then when I received my copy, I realised it was Drinking Stories. Sucking up the disappointment I began to read them.

So Drinking Stories: would this be an uplifting, joyous approach to the theme of having a carousing time and the benefits of being let loose through alcohol? No. What I did learn is that, on a very basic level, drinking is not that good for your body, your mind or your soul. Just some of the outcomes in the short stories here include death through drinking too much, suicide, and a woman scarred when she is burnt, who loses an eye after excess consumption. There is an emboldened paedophile. There are catastrophes that follow people's divorce and the estrangement from their children. Another character is lost in an underground labyrinth, and presumed dead. We also see intoxication resulting in cheating on a dead husband with his brother, then infidelity with new neighbours. 

Though sometimes depressing, the stories are all very well written and surprising in every sense. If you did want to be uplifted, this is not the right book; if you want to read clever description and subtle depictions of relationships under pressure then this is the right book for you. We go deep into characters who, though under the spell of alcohol or alcoholics, are able to show life in a clear, even visceral way.

There is such variety. No two stories have the same theme: drink may be the cause of problems and is never the solution, but we see this in every which way. We see how children are affected. In "The Ballad of Barefoot Bob" by David Swann, it is not enough for young Bobby to have an alcoholic father; he also has to suffer his own mental torments. In "May Day" by Alison Moore, we see Gareth trying to do right by his daughter now living with his estranged wife and her new partner, battling the bottle and also his jealousy of the new man. He sinks into his own metaphorical and literal maze and we are left asking: does he survive or not? For me, the most evocative tale, "Bones" by Hannah Stevens, concerns Henry, who sees his drunken partner Bethan topple from his bedroom window to her death. It underlines the futility of drinking to oblivion.

This collection is a vibrant, thought-provoking set of stories. A collection that makes us think, makes us confront a way of life that is so self-destructive, yet so attractive until events take over and control is lost. You may not be singing along at the end of reading this book, but the stories will remain with you and are accessible in a way that that begs us to challenge and to discuss the outcomes. The editors have done a fine job in bringing these carefully crafted stories to us.


About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is sixty-three. He has a gorgeous wife Annie and two beautiful sons, and loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstone's bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for twenty years and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years.  He has always loved books and reading.

Review by Laurie Cusack of "Mr. Jolly" by Michael Stewart

All the way through Michael Stewart’s collection of short stories the everyday is peeled back far enough for the reader to register the absurdities of existence. ‘The Naked Man’ reads like a paean to Stephen Gough the nude eccentric rambler who refuses to wear clothes and is continually imprisoned for his acts of conscience. Stewart confronts our conformity and our conditioning and our prejudices and begs a question.  The tension he creates politically unsettles and challenges the reader.

Stewart’s crafted text certainly leaves an after-burn. All his stories’ pay-offs linger. His minimalist style and economy reminds me of Raymond Carver and the dirty-realism school of writing. I like the absence of quotation marks and the absence of the word said after direct speech, which work to create an impact on the reader.    

 His existential musings in the title story ‘Mr Jolly’ reminds one of how lonely life’s journey can become. How loneliness encroaches on us all, eventually. It made me think about people’s electronic lives. How alienating life is nowadays. A scarecrow performs the same function in this absurd tale until our protagonist tires of it and it’s sacrificed on a fire: burnt-out like its maker. In ‘Mann,’ the human biological machine comes under scrutiny, as time, routine, speed and stress impact on a commute to work. What seems important swamps Mann’s survival mechanism: split second decisions destroy. Rushing against the clock blinds his common sense. Mann’s conditioning makes him a slave to routine and punctuality. What a waste. His spiritual epiphany comes too late to dynamite his life. The story forces the reader to take stock. Bravo! 

Stewart confronts life’s truths and painful problems with economy and thoughtfulness. But what really lifts this collection are Stewart’s quirky insights that inhabit these cracking tales. An undercurrent of unease concerning our modern lives is realised within this text, which is refreshingly raw and new. The everyday is always unusual and different, if we only stepped back to see. Michael Stewart steps back and he does see and he cares  ̶  and this is what really makes this collection fizz.  

About the reviewer
Laurie Cusack is scraping at the underbelly of Irish Diaspora through a collection of short stories for his Creating Writing PhD at Leicester University. His writing influences include: John McGahern, Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Claire Keegan and Colin Barrett.