Review by Julie Gardner of "The Stories in Between" by Teresa Forrest

There are twenty-five short poems in this pamphlet; the longest is twenty-four lines. They are written in deceptively simple language - deceptive because, despite their accessibility, the poems, rooted in real people and the landscape around them, are profound and deeply moving. They reward the reader who pays close attention. 

In the first poem, "Almost Home," a mother addresses her child:

  I, your mother, am formed from folklore,
  spit and cabbage. When I made you,
  I hadn’t finished making me. I am so rough
  around the edges.

The shortest poem and one of my favourites (it is impossible to choose just one) is "In Balerin Village." The first two lines focus on a domestic appliance, "The fat-bellied range in my granny’s house" which "works hard / to warm us." But the description of the range is also suggestive of the character of its owner, "Get too close and it warns us with a scalding tongue." 

The poetic skill here is subtle – the rhyming of warm and warn, the connection between scalding and scolding. There is humour too, "Pans hiss with home grown / and, once, a cockerel that had crowed too early for her liking." The reader can be in no doubt that this grandmother is a strong and energetic character, summarized in the fifth line of this short poem which stays with the domestic imagery, "Always the kettle whistles to her tune." But the poem is not confined to the kitchen and the grandmother cannot be contained within its lines, the final two of which expand horizons, speaking volumes about the tender relationship between the narrator and her grandmother and hinting at the stories in between: "Each morning she gives me an orange, / a small globe that feels like the world."

There are other stories. "Pillow Talk" charts the gradual disintegration of a couple’s relationship from "that first moment / of easy laughter, / pillow talk between kisses." There’s the woman who lives "on the Tenth Floor of the High Rise" who has "painted her room the colours of the sun." There’s "Mrs Ritchie" who "carries her anger in a handbag, / worn-out crocodile skin, used to have matching shoes."  

The narrative voice remains consistent throughout the collection, compassionate, observant, respectful and with an Irish lilt. This is an exceptional debut pamphlet and I look forward to reading more from this talented poet.

About the reviewer
Julie Gardner is studying towards a PhD at Nottingham Trent University, focussing on Silence and Voice in the poetry of Vicki Feaver and her contemporaries. He poetry pamphlet Remembering was published by Five Leaves Publishers in 2024.

You can read a review of Remembering on Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Review by Lee Wright of "On Agoraphobia" by Graham Caveney

 

Memoirs rarely make deliberate use of space on the page, but the large areas of emptiness in Graham Caveney’s On Agoraphobia (2022) evoke a sense of unease that mirrors the author’s fear of open spaces, motorways, and crowds. As someone intimately familiar with the vulnerability of vast, public environments, Caveney conveys in his second memoir a sense of being throttled by a thousand invisible hands, each chapter strengthening the grip. The narrative is a belt tightening around the chest, each notch drawing one step closer to madness. 

There is a fraught relationship between the writer and the agoraphobic. Caveney recalls Shirley Jackson—once cruelly dubbed Virginia Werewolf—and her anxiety attack in a New York shopping mall: "She stayed inside. Something new and unpleasant had begun to happen every time she tried to leave the house." 

Art and agoraphobia demand a retreat from the world. Art is created out of a desire to fix, reinterpret, or reimagine the world. The more the world is fixed on the page or canvas, the more jarring and unpleasant the real world may feel to the artist upon stepping outside. Caveney has been battling his condition for thirty-plus years, calling it "a neurotic two-step." His agoraphobia began at the University of Warwick. Mine started while waiting for a bus outside a college in a Warwickshire town. 

He quotes Elizabeth Bowen: "Inside everyone, is there an anxious person who stands to hesitate in an empty room?" I have been that person, and I know others who carry that presence within them. But never before has there been such a deeply personal journey into the empty room as in Caveney’s account. 

To proceed, he has to turn back: "I grew up with a whole mythology of nerves. They had their own poetics. Bad with his nerves, a bundle of nerves, a nervous wreck. Nerves were a site of catastrophe." This anxious life, marked by more than its fair share of catastrophe, has provided Caveney with the material to write books that deeply resonate with readers. We can only hope that Shirley Jackson was right when she closed her diary with the repeated phrase: "laughter is possible laughter is possible laughter is possible." 

About the reviewer
Lee Wright is currently pursuing a PhD. His subjects are memoir, people and place. His work has been published in Fairlight Books, époque press, and Cigarette Fire Literary Magazine. 

Review by Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke of "The Book of Guilt" by Catherine Chidgey

1979, England. It's been thirty-six years since Hitler’s assassination ended the Second World War and a peace treaty was signed that helped fuel great advancements in medical science. In Hampshire, three identical boys—Vincent, Lawrence, and William—wake up every morning at a Sycamore Home and tell one of their three mothers what they dreamt about. Mother Morning writes them down in The Book of Dreams. Mother Afternoon teaches them lessons from The Book of Knowledge. Their sins are written in The Book of Guilt. They rarely see Mother Night unless they are sick. And they are often sick. Dr. Roach prescribes pills and injections to help keep the Bug at bay. The boys dream of the day they will get to join all the other children in Margate—a promised land of performing dolphins and bumper cars. 

In Exeter, Kenneth and Majorie dress their adored daughter, Nancy, in a silvery-green dress that gets tighter every year. Kenneth builds an intricately detailed model railway. Marjorie fills every conceivable space with items purchased from mail-order catalogues. Nancy is never allowed to leave the house. 

The Minister of Loneliness who, herself, seems terribly lonely, is assigned by the Prime Minister to find new homes for the Sycamore boys. The Scheme is coming to an end. Meanwhile, the death penalty has been re-introduced.

Nostalgic references to stickle bricks, fondant fancies, and The Generation Game indicate that this is definitely England in the 1970s, but not as we know it. Chidgey’s novel feels quintessentially British, but this England exists in an alternate political reality. It’s a reality where the state has a God complex, and everyone is dehumanised by mass complicity in the secrets that are kept. The references to Jim’ll Fix It remind us that it’s too easy to turn a blind eye to human cruelty. 

You could compare The Book of Guilt with Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go. Sure, they touch on similar themes of medical ethics and nature versus nurture, but Chidgey’s storytelling deserves to be observed without comparison. The richness of Chidgey’s prose and her use of provincial humour amplify the unnerving horror of it all. The slow unravelling of the plot keeps the suspense throughout, giving the reader enough time to think they know what’s going on, before unexpected connections take us to an even darker place. Bold and brilliant, The Book of Guilt deserves to be read and re-read. 

About the reviewer
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke is a playwright and author, with a penchant for the macabre and a fascination with literary explorations of libertinism, psychopathy, narcissism, and coercive control. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing a Leicester University, exploring Terror Management Theory in relation to representations of cultism and mass suicide.

Review by Iain Minney of "The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic epic might sound somewhat underwhelming when explained as simply being about "Killer Plants" - especially when they're not even the all-singing "Audrey II" variety, from noticeably more upbeat storytellers. In fact, this particular famished flora is arguably only a bi-product of how humanity has accidentally undone itself in pursuit of advancing science and weaponry. ("A botanical Frankenstein" would, presumably, be similarly too glib and imprecise).

Waking up blindfolded in hospital, Bill Masen finds his daily routine unexpectedly and annoyingly interrupted. He soon learns he's ironically avoided the permanent blinding that affects practically everyone else, following the spectacular comet-shower that transfixed them all the night before.

At first, the blind actually do try to lead the blind, with everyone stumbling about distraught and disorientated. But, after involvement from those both good intentioned and bad, it's obvious the population simply cannot survive the complete and simultaneous breakdown of such a complicated, interconnected society that we all take for granted.

After the disoriented grow desperate, they then disappear entirely as great cities become crumbling ghost towns in the years that follow. Ultimately Bill, his companion Josella Playton, and a few others, must find safe sanctuary for the future of the human race, battling hardships both ancient and new.

Penned in 1951 (eerily pre-dating both satellites AND genetically modified crops) let's just hope no more of Wyndham's Nostradamus-like predictions come true in a world still single-mindedly bent on advancement ...

As well as being top-notch science-fiction, the novel allows the reader to indulge the dual fantasies of invisibly seeing inside a stranger's privacy, and what to pack and prioritize for the end of the world. Above all else, it's a story about preparedness, knowledge, practicality and ultimately, luck. There's also a subtle commentary on class and social standing, hinting at how perhaps this, too, is merely a fragile human construct that could so easily break down under the right conditions.

in the 70+ years since publication, the story's longevity has demanded countless reprints, spawned a number of dramatizations (of varying success) and also directly inspired Danny Boyle's zombie-ish 28 Days Later (2002). In fact, given the biggest threat the Triffids themselves pose is their inevitable recurrence akin to a persistent weed, perhaps this story gives birth to the uniquely English phobia, that gardening may one day set out for revenge.

About the reviewer

Iain Minney (B.A. in Journalism & Creative Writing pending): tall, "mature," sober, comedian(ish). He has dabbled in stand-up comedy - which he has been writing since he was teenager - as well as being involved with comedy sketches, local filmmaking groups and working on local radio for a number of years both as "Head of News" and having his own weekly 3-hour show. He has been interested in writing for some time and even tried recording a number of audiobooks of short stories he's written together with satirical rants based on the standup he never quite "stood up" with. He loves old punk and 80s rock music, all manner of movies, and Bill Hicks and George Carlin SAVED HIS LIFE. But that's a whole other conversation.

Review by Wiktoria Borkowska of "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman

What does it mean to be human when you’ve never truly known another soul? Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men is a quietly devastating dystopian novel that explores freedom, identity, and survival in a world stripped of meaning.

Originally published in 1995, the novel follows an unnamed narrator—the youngest of forty women imprisoned in an underground bunker, guarded by silent men and with no knowledge of how they got there. When the cage doors unexpectedly open, the women are forced into a barren, post-apocalyptic landscape, where the narrator begins a journey marked by loss, isolation, and a quiet longing for connection.

Harpman’s sparse prose perfectly mirrors the bleakness of the setting, yet it’s the narrator’s inner world that carries the emotional weight. Her introspection and resilience draw the reader in, especially as she grapples with the desire to understand a life she’s never truly lived. A fleeting connection with a young guard—one she doesn’t fully understand—captures the human need for touch, recognition, and feeling.

At one point, the women make a harrowing discovery that challenges their understanding of their own suffering and expands the novel’s exploration of isolation, punishment, and shared fate. Rather than provide answers, Harpman leans into the ambiguity, which only deepens the existential questions the novel poses.

Despite its slow pacing, I Who Have Never Known Men is a deeply thoughtful and emotionally resonant read. The atmosphere is unsettling but never sensationalised, and the philosophical depth invites quiet reflection long after finishing the book.

I recommend this to readers who appreciate introspective, dystopian fiction that prioritises emotion and thought over action—and those drawn to stories of quiet female solidarity. It’s a novel that doesn’t shout—but it echoes.

Favourite quote: "We were not who we were because we had lost the world, but because we were lost in it."

About the reviewer
Wiktoria Borkowska is a first-year Journalism student at the University of Leicester. She enjoys reading emotionally rich fiction and writing reflective reviews on a wide range of fiction, literature, and film.

Review by Kathy Hoyle of "Cuddy" by Benjamin Myers

 

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers is a deeply moving, highly original novel. Part historical fiction, part poetic ballad, this novel is dappled with dreamlike prose that takes us on a journey across the stunning North-East landscape as we follow the pilgrims of St Cuthbert from Anglo- Saxon times through to present day. 

This is a work of historical fiction. This is a work of contemporary fiction. It is a poetic ballad, a script, literary prose, a whimsical puzzle, a themed collection. In short, it’s a genre-defying, fragmented-yet-fully-formed hybrid novel … and like nothing I have ever read before. 

During the 7th Century Viking invasions, the body of St Cuthbert is resurrected. An unofficial saint, Cuthbert - renowned for his gentle manner and affinity to animals - is protected by his devoted servants who carry his body around the North-East until his final resting place is found – a hill upon which the mighty Durham Cathedral is eventually built. Cuddy rests, yet his connection to the people of the North-East continues, bringing great strength and comfort, not only to those who seek him out, but also those who unexpectedly find themselves drawn to him. 

Myers is a master storyteller and the collection of ‘voices’ we hear throughout the novel are utterly engaging. Much like a traditional short story cycle, each story has its own narrative arc and can be read in and of itself, yet after reading the whole novel, the themes and connections between the characters all fall into place. With Cuddy as the central focal point, and the beautiful coastal landscape and Durham Cathedral as backdrop settings, Myers exquisitely portrays North-East life. Yet this book is not a short story cycle. Nor is it a novel. It is something wonderfully experimental and undefinable. 

Myers gives a voice to the common folk, those most often eradicated from history – the women, the children, the ones who live on the margins, the ones who need the most comfort from their beloved Cuddy. Myers cleverly focuses on spiritual redemption for his characters rather than overtly religious themes, allowing readers to find emotional resonance with the stories, no matter what their own religious beliefs might be.  

At times, the storylines are brutal and harsh, often tense and strange with moments of great sadness. I had instances, when reading, where I had to pause for several minutes, simply to compose my thoughts and overwhelming feelings, so profound was the effect. 

Imaginative, original, and deeply moving, I adored this ‘novel’ and would urge everyone to read it.

About the Reviewer
Kathy Hoyle is a working-class writer form the North-East. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as The Forge, Fictive Dream, New Flash Fiction Review and the South Florida Poetry Journal. She holds a BA (hons) and an MA in Creative Writing and is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Leicester.

Review by Kimaya Tushar Patil of "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros

"A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead."

Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing plunges the reader's mind into the cut-throat world of Basgiath War College, where your only options are to survive or die. The narrative follows Violet Sorrengail, a young woman who has been training her whole life to become a scribe, only to be thrust into the elite and ruthless Rider’s Quadrant of Basgiath War College by her mother, against her own will. In a place built to eliminate the weakest cadets, Violet now faces threats and physical challenges that could claim her life every second of every day.

Albeit physically disadvantaged by her fragile body due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), Violet’s strengths lie in her observation skills and her ability to think outside the box. This creates a tense atmosphere, and her resilience against all odds and the normalisation of chronic disabilities is relatable and inspiring to many readers. 

This story teeters on the edge of military romantasy with an emphasis on a coming-of-age plotline. The magical creatures a.k.a. dragons are not just portrayed as objects, but as separate, sentient entities with their own private agendas. Rebecca Yarros masterfully wields the power of foreshadowing in her book, keeping the clues subtle enough to be overlooked at first glance, but seeming to fit seamlessly into the intriguing puzzle that is Fourth Wing. Her careful crafting of not just the world, but the characters and the magic-system is nothing short of awe-inspiring. 

This book falls under the new adult fantasy category and is perfect for people who are just beginning to dip their toes into the genre. With its exciting easter eggs, and a consistently intriguing plotline it keeps the reader hooked from start to finish, leaving them wanting more. 

About the reviewer
Kimaya Tushar Patil is currently pursuing a postgraduate Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She is a dreamer, and passionate about reading and writing stories in all forms and genres.

Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "The Dancer from the Dance" by Janet Burroway

I found this an extraordinary book, one that seems to ignore time and could be set in any period but in only one place, Paris. The city is all important, as much so as the main characters. The descriptions of the Parisian world spill out onto the page, the apartment, the park, the house, museum, art gallery. The colours, muted or bright are described in all their glory. Paris is there before us, ready to be enjoyed, to be engaged with and to entreat.

This is first and foremost a love story. For the reader they have to decide whose story. Is it the city's or is it the main character's, the mystical Prytania?

She has descended upon the narrator, Stanford Powers a UNICEF official, via his son-in-law and he introduces her to his work and his family, and he gradually becomes entranced by her qualities, but does he fall in love with her? That to me remains a mystery and another reading of the book may supply an answer.

We do know that an acquaintance, Kenneth, falls in love with her, but then the bewitching mime artist Bernstein, though married, takes her as his lover. She gives in completely to his charms and causes considerable damage through doing this. Anger and resentment and even death follow her like a cloud, but she seems oblivious to this and the feelings of all around her, especially Bernstein’s wife Elena, and a reclusive artist, Riebenstahl. She breaks hearts, ruins lives and does so without a care in the world. This life she leads impinges on all of Powers’ friends and relationships, his work, his wife and his family, all against the picturesque backdrop of Paris. 

Though first published in 1965, the novel has aged well and is contemporary in so many ways as it shows how easily relationships can be built but also destroyed. The intricate networks are described with intimate detail and are joy to read, though also heart wrenching at times. How can one live a life without care and yet damage so much? The reader has to decide, is this behaviour acceptable or tolerable? Do we forgive because of Prytania’s seeming naivete? Who exactly is this young woman and what is Powers' role in this maze of emotions?

A wonderful read is before you. Do take a chance on this beautifully engrossing tale of love in Paris.

About the reviewer
Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more abut The Dancer from the Dance by Janet Burroway on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Pam Thompson of "Pattern-book" by Éireann Lorsung

 

I first came across across  Éireann Lorsung in Nottingham when she was doing her PhD and was a generous host of poetry events. Since then, I have been enthralled by poems which have sprung up online, via her blog, her multiple passions, and just recently, her postal zine / newsletter. Gentleness, persistence and exuberance are just three of her qualities and all show up here.

Andrew Latimer’s cover design, for this substantial collection from Carcanet, repeats the name of the title in a subtle gradation of colours and which encapsulate its concept. In an interview with Jon McGregor at her online launch, Lorsung says that the colours in the repeated words on the cover are significant for the poems. 

She is avid – about poetry, other artists of all sorts, her people, her places (the English Midlands, the American mid-west, the low country of Flanders) the multiple possibilities of subject and form. Jon McGregor writes a long list of some of Lorsung’s subjects on the back of the book. These are a few of the things that stood out for me: bicycles, rivers, roses, rain, nectarines, ochre, language, parents, students, memory, elegy, frost, gardens, Magritte, poetry, chamomile, learning, brothers, blue, painting, pottery, yellow, tractors, sewing, autumn, fields, fieldfares, art, postcards, gold, sonnets, songs, friends. 

The book is dedicated to Shana, a friend from childhood and threaded through are poems reflecting their growing-up, what is lost and what remains: "When you get this note, it will be // the future … // Friendship is a kind of time-machine, it turns out" ("Postcard to Shana with Photo of Washington Avenue Bridge (Minneapolis)"). 

I particularly loved the affectionate "Postcard to Shana with Drawing of Blackbirds," whose precise sensory imagery of weather, nature and seasons is abundant elsewhere:

          Every warm thing of our girlhood calls us here.
          Blackbirds. Poems. The world: its tablecloths

          and rainy mornings, cities, hands, and flowers.

Lorsung makes everything shine. It all matters, and is worthy of being repeated, just as people’s lives, and memories of such, are enhanced by what has been known many times. 

There is generous love shown towards the ordinary and extraordinary and in finding poetic forms to hold them. The sonnet is a neat container, as in "Sonnet for the Second-Language Speaker," and "Sonnet with a Quotation from Millay," which remembers a childhood friend and what might have been. "Autumn Song" is a longer tour de force where phrases about places, nature, seasons, the body (and more) are shuffled then repeated in different iterations to breathtaking effect. This sounds like a random exercise but I’m certain it was far from it. 

Equally impressive are the sparer fragments  in "Miniscule Sequence" and "Attunement," the latter, being "after Thomas A. Clark":

           gold arrow                                        
           goldfinch
   

           world of ideas
           world of things

There’s so much more to say but I hope this have given some idea of how these poems convey the sheer joy of being in the world and appreciation of its patterns - as Louis MacNeice has written about the world, "The drunkenness of things being various."

About the reviewer
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester.  Her works include include The Japan Quiz (Redbeck Press, 2009), Show Date and Time (Smith|Doorstop, 2006)  and Strange Fashion (Pindrop Press, 2017). Her  prize-winning pamphlet, Sub/urban Legends (Paper Swans Press), was published in the Spring of 2025. 

You can read a review by Gary Day of Sub/urban Legends on Everybody's Reviewing here.