Tales By Kindlelight — Kate Rigby

This bittersweet collection reflects themes for our time, be it the angst of reaching fifty and a life not quite fully realized or the sexual assuredness of the younger generation in ‘A Generation Thing'. Sexual experimentation is explored in ‘Heads or Tails' where a woman agrees to share herself between two best friends, drawing up her own boundaries so that one has her top half, the other her bottom half, while emerging sexuality is explored in ‘Coats' where a couple of pre-pubescent children learn about adulthood and sexuality from beneath a pile of coats at a nineteen-seventies party. In other stories, patterns of behaviour across generations or within a lifetime are explored as in ‘Family Tradition' where the main character returns home to break the bad habit of several lifetimes. In ‘Cutting Edge' the sharpness of a pair of scissors is used to reflect stages in the main character's life as she passes from childhood into adulthood where the scissors take on a sinister edge, while in ‘To The Wire' a man's life is viewed as a football game, together with post-life commentary. Other stories explore life from unusual viewpoints: as in ‘Boo' and ‘Big Mother' while others still have voices of a generation as in ‘Our Marie' and ‘The Colour Of Flesh'. Whatever your inclination, Tales by Kindlelight has something for you.