The Return of the Mullet Hunter / Simon Varwell

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Travel Narrative

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 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:

“Simon Varwell is a compulsive traveller, a keen amateur photographer, and spends too much time having what if moments. Up the Creek Without a Mullet tells the story of one such moment, and is his first book. Simon was born in 1978 and grew up in Benbecula in the Western Isles. He is married and lives in Inverness.”

For more, visit the author’s website.

Description:

“Simon Varwell is a man on a mission. Albeit a ridiculous one: to visit various places in the world with the word ‘mullet’ in their name. The Return of the Mullet Hunter charts his continuing global mission, and includes his travels in England, Canada, New Zealand and the USA as he hunts down obscure backwaters linked together only by their names.”

Appraisal:

I admit it. I’m a sucker for “travel quest” books. Some quests seem to have a certain logic to them (a trip around the world or to all 50 US states, for example). This one, not so much. Yet, because of the ridiculousness of the quest, to visit every place in the world with the word mullet in the name, the story that results is full of the kinds of things that appeal to me. Getting off the beaten path to obscure parts of the world is one. To me this is the point of this kind of quest, the serendipity of discovering places you’d never visit or a reader would never hear about otherwise. The other appeal is the human element, “meeting” a variety of people from these sometimes obscure places. Varwell’s frequent use of “couch surfing” (overnighting on someone’s couch or using their extra bedroom) and staying in hostels sets up more of these situations than normal.

FYI:

Uses UK spelling conventions and slang.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four stars