A Tail of a Mouse: An Anthology from Michael Terence Publishing

by Michael Terence, Tamara Artvin, Mary Charnley

An Anthology of tantalising short stories selected from the Michael Terence Publishing Short Story Competition, 2017.

A Tale of a Mouse - Andy Hamilton
The Last Love of the Sea Captain - Tamara Artvin
A Gap Year for Grandma - Mary Charnley

Trevor Colbourne -Wild Geese
Sandra Kirley - Everything Must Go
Tiffany Williams - Mirella
Emma J Myatt - Your Lifejacket is Under Your Seat
Julia Brilleman - Rubber Dominoes
Pauline Whittle - Doomed
MartinHone - The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection
E C Hayles - The Model
NickAdigu Burke - Many a Silent Wish
Grant Hulbert - Creatures of Myth - The Story of Jared McKay
Paula St. Paul - Hand Across The Water
Sally Wood - Evelyn
Mike Waugh - Prey
Andrea Rose Lyttle - The Ambit
Tim Cove - Homo Erectus
Shayna Marks - It's Not What It Seems
Liam Lennon - Memoirs About a Girl
Fizza Fatima - Fablo's Bar
Hilary Slade - The Life and Times of Lewis Ancer
Aviv Salinas - Counter Revolution
Shelley Crowley - The One Who Wasn't
Tom Nicolson - A Grand Opportunity
David Readings - A Spitfire Called Lola
Lee Wadmore - Happy Crying
Ken Hawes - Look Further than the Cover
Tim Ewins - A Little, Lost
E.L. Spink - Escobar's Last Breakfast
Ron Morton - The Sinkers' Skirmish

246 pages, Paperback

Published July 4, 2017

Reviews

[Kawther · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology containing short stories from all around the world, which were submitted through a contest and only the best ones got featured on this book.
I found that concept interesting enough.

I have never read anything by these authors before which made me even more curious.
each author had a different genre and a different timeline that he wanted to present his story in, which made this book very diverse and entertaining, after every few pages you jump into something completely different without knowing what to expect.

The writing was very good, even though each author had his own writing style it's undeniable they all did great, I mean they did just win a writing competition you know.

I'm not going to review every story like most reviewers choose to do in the cases of anthologies, But i prefer choosing my favorite ones and talking about them,

A Tale Of a Mouse by Andy Hamilton : This one is the best one for me, it's also the first prize winner which isn't surprising because of how great the story is,

It's about the life of Gus the mouse and his family inside the house of Cinderella, except in this story Cinderella is evil and controlling, everyone fears her and her violent behavior, her stepmother and step sisters are actually nice in this story.
I loved it because it was kind of a fairytale retelling but with a twist,

I have never read any retelling with an evil Cinderella, I would love to read more of this
How amazing would it be to have a book about an evil Cinderella where she is the one abusing the stepmom and stepsisters?!

Everything Must Go by Sandra Kirley : It's about a woman dealing with the grief of losing her husband and trying to overcome her mind trick,
I loved the writing, the author managed to capture my attention without having any particular action happening, It broke my heart and just swallowed me into her world.

Your Lifejacket is Under Your Seat by Emma J Myatt : The story is about a woman in a very abusive messed up relationship where she can't escape, the writing is beautiful, I loved the transition between her thoughts and reality, and in just few pages it was an emotional journey .


Creatures of myth - The story of Jared MacKay : A story about the last warlock from a cult, it's packed with magic and adventures, the world building is brilliant, the story has all the great elements for a great book series.

Mirella by Tifanny Williams: a story about a prince and a particular mermaid, I LOVED the writing here, hands down one of my favorites, I absolutely love fairytales and folklore stories , so this story was very enjoyable for me, i really liked it.

Memoirs about a Girl by Liam Lennon : The title is very self explanatory, A young girl finding her self is something we can all relate to, it was interesting and very heart warming, it was just too cute of a story, it's quite surprising and impressive when an author can make characters with so much depth in just few pages.


Those are the ones that stood out to me and i felt the need to talk about them, but i really enjoyed many others. And it is so hard to compare them because all these authors are talented yet all these stories were so different.

I had so much fun reading this, I would love reading more from particular authors in here.

[Tamara Andriasyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am the author of one of the stories. So here is the thing, I think this is awesome :)