{"product_id":"some-new-ambush-9781844713417","title":"Some New Ambush","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the award-winning author of \u003cem\u003eWest\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Mission House\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSome New Ambush\u003c\/em\u003e is the first collection of short stories from award-winning writer Carys Davies. Love, loss, birth, death, betrayal, madness – they all lie in wait for Davies’s characters in their startlingly different worlds: a dry cleaner’s shop in contemporary Chicago, a mining town in South Wales in the sixties, a lunatic asylum in nineteenth century northern England.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShot through with wit and aching emotional poignancy, these stories tell of how we attempt to confront the things life throws in our path – often when we least expect them, and in places where we never thought to look. They tell of the mistakes we make along the way, and of how we try to deal with the whole difficult, unpredictable business. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is the boy who steps into his best friend’s clothes in a desperate bid to fulfil his dreams, the man who comes up with an amazing new invention to win the heart of the woman he loves, the bored young wife doomed to live on an island where everything is red, the middle-aged woman who finds a baby in the sand and passes it off as her own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 15 pieces in Carys Davies’s darkly funny and unsettling collection usually begin with “quite small things”, only to edge gently into an emotional abyss in dank Welsh towns, airless Victorian parlours or mouldering libraries. The half-hidden passions of “Ugly Sister” could be a lost slice of Dylan Thomas, while the ousted Latin teacher of “Historia Calamatitum Mearum” has an Atwood-esque prickly wit that surfaces elsewhere. Arrivals and departures often trigger crises – but then, as “Metamorphosis” puts it, “Take-off and landing are the most dangerous times”\u003c\/p\u003e -- Boyd Tonkin * The Independent *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe stories move seamlessly between the familiar and the surreal, between reality and fantasy, sanity and madness ... The attention is focused as through a magnifying glass and we are hooked, drawn into an imaginary world of which we wish to know more ... her spare, concise, clear style is ideally suited to a genre in which every word must earn its keep.\u003c\/p\u003e -- Hazel Watson * Book Club Reviews – Bromley local meeting *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eI simply adored \u003cem\u003eSome New Ambush\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e -- Simon Savidge * Savidge Reads *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach story is, as you’d hope from the title, a new ambush (this is true of the second collection as well). You never know where you will end up. By the third story, I had that quivering sense I get when I read good crime fiction, alert for every clue. Only once did I guess the ending. This is intensely exhilarating as a reader and a writer.\u003c\/p\u003e -- Jackie Morris * Just Waving *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHwang         \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWaking the Princess\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMonday Diary        \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGingerbread Boy      \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRose Red                 \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Captain’s Daughter          \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePied Piper       \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBoot         \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eScouting for Boys       \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHomecoming, 1909         \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHistoria Calamitatum Mearum\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMetamorphosis\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn Skokie            \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Visitors       \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUgly Sister\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Salt Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51864071864663,"sku":"9781844713417","price":11.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781844713417.jpg?v=1759921535","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/some-new-ambush-9781844713417","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}