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Ghost Breezes
Twenty stories--funny, spooky, intense, magical--by actor, playwright and writer Daniel Lillford. Many of the tales explore a certain fishing community on the South Shore of Nova Scotia; others take us as far afield as the Channel Islands.
210 pages, Paperback
Published November 21, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 10, 2024
I read a poem years ago of someone entering an imagined country of the inner self. At the border, the customs agent (an old man) produces a photograph from his home-spun coat: it is of one of the writer's grandparents.
That's what reading this collection is like: receiving a series of long-lost photographs of people you once knew, who inhabited a space somewhere in your sub-conscience, just beyond the liminal geography of the present - a series of distant remembered, acquaintances brought back to you in the present.
The stories are, at once, both riveting and arresting. If you're looking for a book that is trying to “grab a toe-hold in the public eye” (my favourite mixed metaphor - but not from the book, btw), this isn't your book. But....
If you like your reading to reflect and illuminate the wonder of being here, with humour, thoughtfulness, and an almost palpable edge of mystery, then this IS the book for you.
Slim as this book of stories is, it is not a book you will race through. In fact, there were a number of times where I had to stop and go for a walk to take in the wonder and sunshine of being here. You will treasure every moment of reading it.
I doubt anyone who has this book has lent it out... they know they'll never get it back! Lol.
I see the price has gone down substantially since I bought my copy - so there's no reason for you not to take a chance and buy it (unless you're expecting the breathless page-turner du jour - as this is a collection to be savoured and read with memory and heart).
That's what reading this collection is like: receiving a series of long-lost photographs of people you once knew, who inhabited a space somewhere in your sub-conscience, just beyond the liminal geography of the present - a series of distant remembered, acquaintances brought back to you in the present.
The stories are, at once, both riveting and arresting. If you're looking for a book that is trying to “grab a toe-hold in the public eye” (my favourite mixed metaphor - but not from the book, btw), this isn't your book. But....
If you like your reading to reflect and illuminate the wonder of being here, with humour, thoughtfulness, and an almost palpable edge of mystery, then this IS the book for you.
Slim as this book of stories is, it is not a book you will race through. In fact, there were a number of times where I had to stop and go for a walk to take in the wonder and sunshine of being here. You will treasure every moment of reading it.
I doubt anyone who has this book has lent it out... they know they'll never get it back! Lol.
I see the price has gone down substantially since I bought my copy - so there's no reason for you not to take a chance and buy it (unless you're expecting the breathless page-turner du jour - as this is a collection to be savoured and read with memory and heart).
August 7, 2024
These are the best short stories I’ve read. And I read short stories all the time and only the best.
In a world where information is dependent upon Google, where approvals by bots and fake accounts are the norm, where social influencing is seriously recommended by job counsellors, where review by celebrities and reality stars outweighs critical scrutiny and the emerging generation is hard-wired to prefer image over literature, the maestros of serious writing are those who can genuinely interpret the world for us.
And this is what Daniel Lillford so brilliantly does. He uniquely interprets his world with an amazing array of oddities, so matchlessly that Dylan Thomas might consider plagiarising a few for a rewrite of Under Milk Wood, Roald Dalh might benefit from a Lillford workshop and Edgar Allan Poe might learn a trick or two about twists and turns.
I kid you not. His writing is genius. Informative, insightful, unpredictable, character driven and alive with imagination. Read them. You’ll thank me eternally. Daniel’s writing is a legacy to humanity, now, tomorrow and forever.
In a world where information is dependent upon Google, where approvals by bots and fake accounts are the norm, where social influencing is seriously recommended by job counsellors, where review by celebrities and reality stars outweighs critical scrutiny and the emerging generation is hard-wired to prefer image over literature, the maestros of serious writing are those who can genuinely interpret the world for us.
And this is what Daniel Lillford so brilliantly does. He uniquely interprets his world with an amazing array of oddities, so matchlessly that Dylan Thomas might consider plagiarising a few for a rewrite of Under Milk Wood, Roald Dalh might benefit from a Lillford workshop and Edgar Allan Poe might learn a trick or two about twists and turns.
I kid you not. His writing is genius. Informative, insightful, unpredictable, character driven and alive with imagination. Read them. You’ll thank me eternally. Daniel’s writing is a legacy to humanity, now, tomorrow and forever.
August 8, 2024
How much did I enjoy this book you ask? I ordered 5 more copies to give as Christmas presents. It is beautiful. The characters are so vivid, so finely drawn, so touching in many cases. The stories are like little jewels each in their own velvet case. And this from someone who generally dislikes collections of short stories. In French there is the expression "coup de coeur", a movement of the heart, when we find something that stands out and that we particularly love. "Ghost Breezes" is my coup de coeur.
August 6, 2024
Ghost Breezes is a collection of short stories written from a perspective that is at once heartbreakingly honest and wickedly funny. Daniel Lillford uses his talents as a theatre artist to weave a certain magic into his stories which rivet our attention as we cheer for his characters’ fortunes based on Just Desserts. His voices and dialogue ring with the authenticity of rural Nova Scotia or the Channel Islands in which they’re set. The reader will not want this collection to end! Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.ca/Ghost-Breezes-D...
https://www.amazon.ca/Ghost-Breezes-D...
August 6, 2024
I loved this moving collection of short stories chronicling the seemingly joyless lives of the hardy, plain-spoken souls who inhabit the harsh coastline of Nova Scotia and beyond; places so remote they seem suspended in time, where buried emotions run as deep as the currents of the unforgiving sea. How can such haunting tales, steeped in sadness, seem so strangely uplifting? Because of Lillford’s remarkable prose, which is so decidedly delicious it can give Dylan Thomas a run for his money, and his deep love for and understanding of the unorthodox characters he has created. Worth every penny!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews