Kirjahaku

Harris in Pieces is a cheeky cabinet of comic miniatures-short stories and poems that tilt the everyday theatre of modern life into the light and let it sparkle. One minute, a head teacher is MacGyver-ing a shambolic school f te into triumph with nothing but duct tape, diplomacy, and tea. The next, a slippery minister sashays back to his old school for a PR waltz-polish on the surface, chaos in the wings. The joy is in the reveal: the distance between how we perform in society and who we really are. The cast is gloriously, recognisably human. Parents keep up appearances on the school run. Critics and politicians buffing their images for a fickle press. Ordinary strivers who can turn even simple plans into slapstick. The laughs land fast with smart dialogue, razor-sharp asides, and social observations that make you wince, then cackle. Threaded between the tales are nimble, mischievous poems that stretch the grin: a light-footed tour of French rituals and appetites; a gleeful "what if" about printed houses that spooks bankers and pundits; riffs on convenience, culture, and the small myths we live by. The verse is musical without being precious, generous without going soft. What binds it all is a humane streak. Even the blowhards get a wink; even the chancers get their moment. Grace keeps popping up where you don't expect it, like on the touchline, under a PTA tent, in the breath held before a photo-op. Dip in anywhere or read straight through. Either way, you'll get crisp setups, satisfying payoffs, and that aftertaste of recognition that lingers long after the laugh. For fans of social comedy and modern satire, Harris in Pieces offers bite with benevolence-laugh-out-loud scenes, quotable lines, and the warm shock of seeing ourselves, just slightly askew.

Harris in Pieces is a cheeky cabinet of comic miniatures-short stories and poems that tilt the everyday theatre of modern life into the light and let it sparkle. One minute, a head teacher is MacGyver-ing a shambolic school f te into triumph with nothing but duct tape, diplomacy, and tea. The next, a slippery minister sashays back to his old school for a PR waltz-polish on the surface, chaos in the wings. The joy is in the reveal: the distance between how we perform in society and who we really are. The cast is gloriously, recognisably human. Parents keep up appearances on the school run. Critics and politicians buffing their images for a fickle press. Ordinary strivers who can turn even simple plans into slapstick. The laughs land fast with smart dialogue, razor-sharp asides, and social observations that make you wince, then cackle. Threaded between the tales are nimble, mischievous poems that stretch the grin: a light-footed tour of French rituals and appetites; a gleeful "what if" about printed houses that spooks bankers and pundits; riffs on convenience, culture, and the small myths we live by. The verse is musical without being precious, generous without going soft. What binds it all is a humane streak. Even the blowhards get a wink; even the chancers get their moment. Grace keeps popping up where you don't expect it, like on the touchline, under a PTA tent, in the breath held before a photo-op. Dip in anywhere or read straight through. Either way, you'll get crisp setups, satisfying payoffs, and that aftertaste of recognition that lingers long after the laugh. For fans of social comedy and modern satire, Harris in Pieces offers bite with benevolence-laugh-out-loud scenes, quotable lines, and the warm shock of seeing ourselves, just slightly askew

Through traditional stories, Grandmothers' understandings guide and nurture parents and children as they grow together. Dual-language: English and Mi'kmaq. Sali'j is a Mi'kmaw woman. She is strong, she is happy. Happy to be part of a loving family, happy to be Mi'kmaq. She begins to notice changes to her body, subtle at first, then more noticeable. She realizes that she is pregnant. She and her husband rejoice to think of welcoming a child into their lives. She goes to her Mother, to her Grandmother, to her Godmother. She tells them she is pregnant. They hug her in joy. They gather their knowledge and their wisdom from teachings passed down from woman to woman, over the generations; they share this knowledge, little by little, story by story. This is the Mi'kmaw way.

A collection of prize-winning stories that celebrate life's absurdities and contradictions. This amusing collection of short stories explores a range of complex characters navigating their way through life, including drag queen Roxanne, who is drafted in by the police to help prevent local sex workers from being assaulted; 'cleaning lady' Doreen, who uses company gossip to swindle money out of her bosses; pizza delivery driver Mark, aiming to benefit from the sexual appetites of his wealthier clients; newly qualified pharmacist Anne, trying to battle her way through the tedium of speed dating, and many more. With narratives ranging from the familiar to the downright bizarre, these stories aim to delight and intrigue, acting as a reminder that most seemingly mundane experiences are anything but.

When Cougar Bill, lead guitarist and founder of the iconic pop group The Cougars, is found hanging from the rafters of his sprawling country home by a curious schoolboy, Detective Chief Inspector Max Bellamy is called in to investigate. Was it suicide—or something far more sinister? What links Bill’s death to a string of mysterious drownings from years past? And how much does Josie, Bill’s wife and the band’s manager, Eric Irwin, really know? As Bellamy digs deeper, he finds himself navigating a tangle of suspects, secrets, and those eager to dismiss the death as a suicide. But when threats are made against his wife, MP Louise Bellamy, the case becomes personal—and the stakes turn deadly. Will Bellamy uncover the truth before it's too late?

A historical family saga with elements of war, crime and spy fiction.

The title story, Fallen Eagles, is a Hamlet-inspired story about a Scottish boy who loses his idolised mountaineer father in an accident and blames his uncle to such an extent that he contemplates murder. Other stories take us to the French Revolution, the First World War, and exploring old and new love.

This is a wedding that will change lives – and not just the lives of the bride and the groom. Devon-born London lawyer Kate Densham is to marry her colleague, Robert Harrington. Her father, a senior university professor, is involved in a substantial land deal in which the university is seeking to sell a large chunk of the land it owns to a developer. Kate and her fiancé are acting for the possible buyers of the land. They know that the organisation is involved in criminal activity and has strong ties to the chairman of the local planning committee, and believe they can take effective action against them 'from the inside’... But don’t forget – as all of this is happening, there’s still the wedding to attend. From Matthew Densham, the uncle of the bride, to Celia Harrington, the grandmother of the groom; Phyllis Drayton, friend of the bride’s parents, to Simon Roche, an ex-university friend of the groom; this is a wedding that will impact the lives of all that are involved.

‘Gemini Day’ is the rollercoaster epic of an Englishman and an American woman who meet and fall in love in the Spanish Civil War. They are both journalists forced to flee to southern France. In an old farmhouse, Ruth gives birth to their child, Susannah, on the same day as a fugitive Spanish woman shot by Nationalists gives birth to a son and dies almost immediately. Ruth and her husband Bob adopt the boy and call him Rafael after his murdered father. They name the day when their children were born as Gemini Day, and the story tracks the Gemini Days of the future.

After building a successful group of restaurants, Val Reynolds meets and marries jeweller Hugo Gilard, and forms the Gilrey Corporation. On Hugo’s death, Val finds herself fighting against managers within the corporation who seek to take it over and turn into a more ruthless and profit-driven concern than she and Hugo envisaged. The battle involves Val’s four adult children and their partners, not all of whom are wholly supportive of her. The business jungle and its effect on the people within it is exposed in the ongoing battle for control of the Gilrey Corporation, and its effect on a family at a vulnerable time shows the different characters and aspirations of them all. After describing family matters historically in Howell Grange and over three days of a marriage in The Densham Do, Bruce Harris turns to the business politics and conflicts of the Gilard family in this latest work.

In this perplexing and challenging â??whodunnitâ??, will Inspector Bellamy succeed in solving the case, or will the shadows of deception prevail?

‘Night Traffic (Urban Tales)’ is a collection of short stories by Bruce Harris, all of them in city settings or connected with city life. A female film and TV star with a sideline in rescuing women from trafficking, an all-night diner with unwelcome visitors, a man traumatised by a traffic accident, an ‘upmarket’ rent boy in search of his lost sister, a journalist meeting a lady in a station who may or may not be what she seems to be, a London man returning to his country childhood; the characters cover a wide cross-section of city experience.

Reviewed by John Holland --short fiction author and organiser of "Stroud Short Stories" Like his last collection of short stories, Odds Against', the proceeds from his new collection, The Guy Thing', go directly to support the Huntingdon's Disease Association. The Guy Thing' has more in common with Odds Against' than that. Again, Harris has provided a beautifully written and emotionally uplifting collection. The eponymous title of the opening story in this collection, The Guy Thing', is about suicide. When faced with a suicide attempt by a fellow student, the main character recalls a pastoral session in his school sixth form in which a respected senior teacher addressed the students about his personal experience of suicide. For Harris, The Guy Thing' is/are the repressed feelings of men, which typically explode into a negative reaction. Throughout this collection the male characters battle their emotions in order to find a more positive, more appropriate response to crises. The stories are compassionate and positive. The past, especially the school years, is often a factor to the decisions made by the key characters. Harris writes with both understanding and heart about men and boys from all backgrounds - gay, straight, lonely, new to this country, ill, injured or suicidal. Throughout this collection the male characters battle their emotions in order to find a more positive, more appropriate response to crises. The stories are compassionate and positive. The past, especially the school years, is often a factor to the decisions made by the key characters. Harris writes with both understanding and heart about men and boys from all backgrounds - gay, straight, lonely, new to this country, ill, injured or suicidal. One of his best stories, The Daniel Album, is an exceptionally tender tale of love and friendship between a young gay man and a young straight man. Another, Terms and Conditions, reveals a university student seeking funds by becoming a porn star, but Harris has him controlling his involvement so that ultimately it leads to a new and successful life. In Planet Past, it is the young granddaughter whose love for her grandfather brings sense and understanding to a family struggling to cope with his dementia. Bruce Harris's stories draw in the reader. He is a natural story-teller, and despite the overwhelmingly positive, uncynical story lines, and the fact that you may occasionally find your eyes becoming watery, he always avoids sentimentality. But there is an honesty and vulnerability to many of these stories. And they are about something important. "Bruce Harris' stories are imaginative and emotive, with glimpses of profound psychological insight. His characters are yearning, refractory, idiosyncratic - in short, real. That alone would compel me to read his work, but the clincher is his delightfully mischievous sense of humour. A writer I'm happy to recommend."