Buy Because Sometimes Something Extraordinary Happens and Other Ways of Being as a bundle

 

 

Seventeen short stories by Debz Hobbs-Wyatt from over a decade of competition wins and shortlistings. Featuring Learning to Fly, winner of the inaugural Bath Short Story Award; Chutney, shortlisted in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and Pushcart-nominated The Theory of Circles.

Meet a mixture of beguiling narrators, from seven-year-old Leonardo Renoir Hope trying to change the past so his dad doesn’t die, and George and his carrot-growing friends on an east London allotment waiting for the world to end, to Amy Fisher who realises that her husband, after his sudden death, is not who she thinks he is… but who is the other Mrs Fisher? This one adds a touch of medical horror to the mix.

All of the stories are about ordinary people when extraordinary things happen to them.

 

RRP £9.00 

Other Ways of Being is an anthology of stories that ask us many questions about:

• otherness: Is a stranger a threat or is he just trying to help? It may be as clever as being a fortune-teller but is it helpful?
• other times: Is the wild woman really a little girl that she used to know? Will they be safe now or should they worry about the bright soldiers marching? Which horror does the deep sleeper hide?
• other histories: Who was that strange child? How did they manage to feed so many people?
• other worlds: Can a couple remain together even when their natures threaten to keep them apart? Is a seemingly incompetent wizard cleverer than he seems? What happens when an alien makes a mistake and almost gives himself away? Do animals help each other in their struggle against the damage that humans are doing? Who exactly is the lady in blue? Is Bradley’s the best story ever?
• our near futures: Can a man survive in a dystopian future if he has no more human contact? What can ATMs do when society goes moneyless? What happens when the money runs out? Just how smart will the smartphone get? Or driverless cars for that matter? Where will we find sanctuary when the extremists start winning? What happens to the clones when the blueprint gets sick?
• other sexualities and genders: Will we get used to Toni?

Does this collection supply the answers to those questions? That is for the reader to decide.

 

Buy both together for £15.00