The Garden Where Black Flowers Grow by Tim Jeffreys

Tim Jeffreys has been writing short stories for four years, and mainly sells them in an audio format. He has, however, produced a fairly large selction in a print book, including the title story.

It offers a wide selection of stories, some are horror stories, some have the feel of a sinister fairy tale, a few are simply descriptive pieces. They have a rather subtle, ‘old fashioned’ feel to them, with some having a rather dark humour running through. It’s a good book to dip into, and every story reveals something new with each reading.

My favourites must be the title tale, ‘Alice and the Scarecrow’ and ‘Soft Clocks’.. the latter having the humour previously mentioned.

Visit Tim’s website to learn more.

Fire and Shadow by Imogen Howson

Having discovered Imogen’s writing not long ago, I was excited to read her latest offering, which she calls a ‘dark fantasy romance’. Once again, I loved every moment!

Imogen is a great story teller, who can throw you straight into the story from the very beginning. At the start of this one, we are introduced to the Shadows, and can immediately feel the fear that everyone lives under.. they are very menacing. From there, we discover that Fern, the lead character, has the gift of being a fire-starter.. a gift she needs to learn to control. The story goes on to explore how she manages to do so, along with her relationship with Nik, a magician who tries to help her.

Imogen’s writing hasn’t yet failed to grab hold of me, and hold me throughout the story. My only criticism here is that the tale is too short.. I want to learn more about each character, and the world that they live in.

As always, I eagerly await the next tale from this very talented writer.

Visit Imogen’s web site to find all her short stories.