**** Well-written, subversive and exhilarating stories. HJ Furl’s twenty one short stories in Basque are a special kind of treat. In the sense that Jane Austen recommended, the author has immersed herself in the life of the lower middle-classes of south Essex, England. This is the land of gyms and nail bars, off-licences and faded high streets; islands of crumbling infrastructure in a sinister hinterland of lakes, dark woods and mudflats by the cold North Sea. Her characters are the desperate, slightly unhinged members of the precariat: receptionists, hygienists, dentists, personal trainers, clerks. Their lives are small, circumscribed and desperate: Covid has tipped many of them over the edge. The author has by no means restricted herself geographically: some of the stories are set in Scotland and in part much further afield, yet they all carry with them a common look and feel: exuberant, humorously exaggerated, sardonic, bathetic - and spiced with a hopeless eroticism. The author is particularly good at scene-setting. Her descriptions are always deft, deploying novel turns of phrase and a fresh, elaborated vocabulary. What I like best about her writing is its insinuating quality: her characters’ pretensions exist to be relentlessly undermined. It’s a galvanising and shocking ride. It would be wonderful if the author could plunge deeper into her imagined worlds and seek to turn out a novel-length piece of work as a follow-on project. That could be really special.

*****HJ Furl does an amazing job bringing their characters to life. They feel real and draw you into their stories as you connect with their lives and experience how they see the world. HJ writes every word beautifully and makes you want to keep reading until there are no pages left. One of my favourite authors. I wish I could give more than 5 stars for these beautifully written stories that connect with your heart from the first page.

**** Some for 50 Shades fans, though not all. A series of well-told short stories which follow the changes, or not, in attitudes to women over the centuries. A harsh start with the witches trials as background, up to the modern-day. Some were more graphic than my usual reading, but that is the challenge of today, when readers in their millions read 50 Shades, so no doubt this book will be very successful. I hope so, it is well written, with plenty of imaginative plots and I am sure it will find a large audience.