Saturday, October 26, 2013

18 Days / Allen Miles


Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Allen Miles lives in East Yorkshire with his family. He spends his time watching films and listening to music. He has written a number of articles and had short stories published.

Description:

Davy rushes to hospital to be at the birth of his first child, but on his arrival he finds that his wife died in the process of delivering the baby. Davy enters a downward spiral of self-destruction.

Appraisal:

If there is one word to describe this story it’s raw. Within a few pages of the start Davy’s beautiful wife, the woman who pulled him out of his self-imposed pit, is dead. He leaves the hospital carrying a bunch of flowers and a teddy, then goes and gets drunk. By the time he wakes up the symbols of a new life are gone, lost somewhere en-route.

Davy spends the next couple of weeks in oblivion, avoiding everyone. He drinks himself stupid, loses whole periods to alcohol. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything. He just about manages to get to his wife’s funeral, but no more.

The author absolutely puts Davy, and the reader, through the wringer. The poor sod gets into fights, mentally and physically beating himself up, utterly down at his loss, not even thinking about his newborn child. At the same time his family is trying to pull him around, but he resists with his every fibre.

This is a well written story. The emotion and sense of loss is almost visceral in nature. The guy is a total mess, and contemplates finishing it all. Will he? Well, you’ll need to read it for yourself, but this is a book that gets better as it progresses.

FYI:

Some swearing.

Format/Typo Issues:

None.


Rating: **** Four stars

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