Reader, do not be fooled. The brevity of this novella-in-flash belies the breadth and scope of its subject matter. In assured, clear-eyed prose, Karen Jones quickly immerses us into the world of her loyal, smart, brave protagonist. Bernadette is a child who becomes a woman, a bully who becomes the bullied, forever seeking the birthright we all share, that of simple tenderness and understanding. When It’s Not Called Making Love is a breathless, breathtaking, unflinching coming-of-age debut you will not want to miss.
~Kathy Fish, Author of Wild Life: Collected Works
Karen Jones artfully captures the dangers and hurts of life for suburban adolescent Bernadette, who suffers a painful awakening as she negotiates the quagmire of sex and the shifting rules of friendship. Frank and frustrated, Bernadette’s voice is breathless and vibrant, and the reader can only act as witness and wish her well on her journey. Poignant and full of truth, this is gorgeous writing.
~Nuala O’Connor, author of Joyride to Jupiter
I just loved When it’s Not Called Making Love. With an authentic voice, Karen Jones tells the story of the troubled Bernadette as she grows from displaced child to young adult. The stories are at times heart-breaking, at times hilarious, but they are always utterly engrossing. An exemplary novella-in-flash.
~Diane Simmons, author of Finding a Way and An Inheritance
Full of pent up desire and intense observation, this book grips you close, and pulls you hard into the darkness. This is succinct, sharp writing about loneliness, with raw pain and love at its core.
~Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, winner of The Mogford Prize and Writing the Future.
Paperback, ISBN 978-1-912095-16-2, 133mm x 203mm, 48 pages.
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Eleanor Walsh is an assured storyteller. In Stormbred she reels the reader into the life of Ruby, a young Cornish girl searching for connection – to the world and to others. Walsh explores with perception these themes of connection and disconnection, embedding them skilfully in both the form and the language of the novella. An exceptionally rewarding and immersive read.
In The House on the Corner, personal tremors large and small unsettle the foundations of a middle-class, nuclear family at the end of the 1980s. Alison Woodhouse has a novelist’s gift for capturing in words the currents and eddies of intimate, private thought. Her characters exist in a world of subtle, shadowy shifts – try as they might to understand what’s happening around them, they are shaped by forces beyond their comprehension and control. Luckily for the reader, Woodhouse knows exactly what she’s doing. She renders her characters’ disappointments and joys in paragraph after paragraph of exquisite prose.
A remarkable story of a woman’s life in an unnamed city in the aftermath of a series of earthquakes. It’s written with claustrophobic, relentless and urgent conviction. What’s most compelling is how the story is gleaned mostly through flashbacks, as though, like the city’s buildings, it’s been broken into fragments and we are picking our way through rubble. Gradually, like rescue workers, we uncover the situation of a hospitalized husband, a lover lost to a building’s collapse, and the tender domestic bonds the woman shares with her father and his colleague. This is a dark, oppressive story but, through it, the writer explores how humanity responds to crisis – and has produced a metaphor for our own times.