Review: A collection well worth reading
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 3, 2013
I'm generally not a great fan of short stories but I am a great fan of Jan Ruth's longer novels and was therefore very pleased when I saw she had brought out this anthology.  The collection contains five stories based around people who have reached a certain crossroads in their lives.  People who need to find space to reacquaint themselves with their inner person and make the right decision about the future.  And as usual, the physical space is provided in the shape of the wild and wonderful Welsh landscape.  In Jan Ruth's stories this landscape becomes almost a character in its own right.Against this dramatic backdrop we meet Frankie, torn between the decision to forge a new life with Clara or pick up the pieces of his shattered life with Ella; the selfless Pattie, whose birthday candles illuminate more than just the cake and Tom in my favourite story, 'A Piece of Cake', who takes responsibility for sixteen rambler-pensioners who lead him to a turning point in his life.  There is also the rather haunting story of Mari, half a twin coping with tragedy in a mysterious way and the final (almost a flash-fiction piece) involving Sylvia an abandoned wife who almost manages to convince herself that solitude is a desirable state.All Jan Ruth's characters live and breathe in their realistic complexity, but I always find her male characters more interesting and better developed than her female ones.  I found myself wanting to know much more about Frankie and Tom than the rest in this collection and wishing those stories were longer.For an introduction to a writer's work, this short collection is ideal and it also includes the opening chapters of her longer novels, all of which are highly recommended by this particular reader and one of which (Wild Water) remains firmly in my top ten of best reads of 2012 - and possibly ever!