I'm not usually a fan of short stories outside the science fiction or mystery genre, but the title of this one caught my notice, The stories are interesting and engaging without being childish, even though it contains some retelling of children's tales. I found myself reading through the book quickly and did not skip any of the stories as I usually do when the story does not measure up. This book lives up to the title and is well worth spending some of your reading time. You'll be glad you did.

I coundn't resist the beautiful cover and generally love a good yarn, especially if it's "somewhere in between", which, for me, means genre mix.

The stories in this book turned out to be a hugely enjoyable variety, humour, ghosts, love, it's all there.
I used to read one or two on my daily way to work and they kept me happily occupied and surely entertained, but had me also scratching my head, because the end more often than not isn't really a surprise.
In fact, I found myself wondering if this was just the first chapter and maybe another one was to follow, but sadly, it wasn't to be.

Let me give you an example.
In the first story Blind Date, singleton Walter isn't really looking forward to his date. He has been set up by his working colleague, and would rather prefer to call the whole thing off by now. Assuming his colleague will take offence, if he says no that late in the day, he gritts his teeth and goes along to the restaurant, where they are supposed to meet.
The woman turns up in time, she is nice, they get on well, he feels relieved and......well, that's it folks.
Don't get me wrong, the story is nice, but there's no unexpected twist, no oomph.

Still, I have to be honest and to admit, I found myself getting back to the book, and looking forward to do so, until I had finished reading it.
Definitely a collection to pass the time nicely and I give it 3,5 stars.

As the title reflects there are distinct parts to this book.

Part 1: The Blind Date; The Clairvoyant, A Fatal Adventure, Another Cigarette, Kevin Becker’s Epiphany – and many more – all dark, darker and outright scary dark. I am still looking for the tales of charm.

Part 2 – Mother Goose on the Rocks – A series of Fairy Tales, some very clever, some not so much, some would have been better without all the sarcasm. Actually sarcasm seemed to pervade all the writing and it felt overdone and tedious.

Part 3 – Adam & Eve - was this the balderdash? Or was this simply how it could have gone in the Garden of Eden?!

In Conclusion – a silly convolution of every cliché the author could pull out in forty seconds or less. Was this the balderdash?

As defined in the dictionary; Balderdash; senseless, stupid, or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense.

My biggest criticism would be the throwback language. I kept thinking this guy is mired in the sixties, seventies, several decades ago – it grated.

The book is definitely different - I kind of liked it – not over the moon – but I liked it.

Thank you NetGalley and Outskirts Press for a copy.