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Tapestries and sleeping beauties Carolyn Burns, embroiderer-extraordinaire little knows what she’s up against when she meets brother-in-law Bob’s architect, Alexander Wells, on the building site of Bob’s new home. The scenic route is an award-winning true story that describes the perils of ignoring a young Carabinieri with a pistol. Squeaky shoes takes you into the courtroom for a divorce based on farting. Yin and Yang is a story of exquisite love and loss and … A south sea pearl is a salutary lesson about trusting too easily. |
| The stories behind the stories Several of these are based on fact; my experiences, in fact! In Tapestries and other short stories it was me high up on the rickety scaffolding acid-cleaning splattered grout from the brickwork. It was too good an image not to springboard into a story. The scenic route recounts a family holiday we took in 1989. We were campervanning around Europe and decided to head over the mountains and take the Alpine border crossing from Italy to France. While John was doing his best to reassure the young carabinieri that we weren’t spies, I had visions of being thrown into prison and was doing my best to remember who the Foreign Affairs Minister was to get us out of there! Squeaky shoes conjures up memories of someone in my past who used to say ‘Squeaky shoes’ every time he farted. To say it was annoying is understating the effect that it had on everyone around him! Last but not least the idea for A south sea pearl was seeded by a trip to Broome some years ago. John surprised me with a beautiful pearl that we had set when we returned home to Canberra. |
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| This review includes a great comment about Squeaky shoes. It made me laugh when I read it. “How’s about a little romance tale with a happy ending? Or perhaps another with a punch-in-the-gut jolt at the finale? They’re right here. Would you prefer a really short one that’ll make you laugh `til your eyes water and your sides hurt – so funny that you’ll have to hang onto the chair arms to keep from falling over? I guarantee that you’ll be yelling to whomever’s in the next room, “Hey, you’ve just got to read this!” I did – after I got to where I could stop laughing. You’ll have to buy the book and explore the very last yarn to find out what’s there. I won’t tell you more, except that you’ll get pulled right into it, in a hurry. Alana Woods has given us a gem – a collection of wonderfully written short stories that will leave you asking for more. She’s an extraordinarily imaginative author with a virtuoso’s command of the language. Don’t miss this one!” |
