The world constructed in the pages of Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers situates itself quite comfortably between the dirt and hardship of real medieval life and the strange otherness of half-remembered myths. This is a world where you’d pay a man to hang both animals and people, but also a world where girls can magically transform into birds. These two elements from two different stories feel complimentary rather than contradictory.
Dark Neighbourhood is a collection bound by dread. ‘Dark’ is an appropriate word, as these stories enter the dark recesses of the minds of troubled characters as well as dark places.
I contact Daniel Sluman on my iPad. The iPad acts as a portal into his house, much in the same way his collection single window provides the reader a glimpse into a year he and his wife spent unable to leave a room in their house due to severe chronic pain and mobility issues. My Read More
The Sun is Open is a poetry collection from Northern Irish poet and academic Gail McConnell. McConnell had previously published two poetry pamphlets, Fourteen (2018) and Fothermather (2019).
From the very first page which details the tragic death of McConnell’s father by a bullet in front of her three-year-old self, it is made immediately clear to the reader that this will be a difficult and confrontational read.
range in form and tone, as well as dialect, with some presented in Scots and others in English. Bramwell is a poet, musician and performer from the Black Isle who describes himself as a writer who ‘works between literary genres with a strong sense of rhythm and melody.’
