November 5

You can’t have a happy ending unless you have a miserable middle!
 
The Underworld Kingdom is turned upside down when Princess Samantha requests a story with a Happy Ending. Happy Endings are unheard of in a Kingdom populated by the deceased. The King and Queen are most alarmed by their daughter’s strange behaviour.
 
Chaos ensues when Death takes a break from his normal career to pursue his passion for poetry and the King decides to pay a visit to the Kingdom Upstairs to track down his rogue employee.
 
Join the King as he holds auditions to find a new Royal Music Maker when Piano Bones Jones decides he needs a rest from Songs of Suffering and Bloody Ballads.
 
There are many more tales in this collection of short stories from the Underworld Kingdom you won’t want to miss!

Miserable Middles is a delightful collection of tales by authors Boo Irwin and Pheobe Penhalligan. Its dark yet quirky stories have a classic feel to them and made me an instant fan of publishing house, Rebel Books.

Characters: Each story follows the same set of main characters as they go about their lives in the Underworld Kingdom. My two favourite characters were the peculiar Princess Samantha who insists that stories need not have a depressing ending, and the cookery loving Death who has a knack for poetry. Each character was three dimensional and felt fully realised which is quite a feat considering that the book consisted of short stories.

Originality: The world that Irwin and Penhalligan created was extremely unique and had the perfect mix of darkness and light humour. I also enjoyed they way that the authors managed to create stories that felt old yet modern at the same time. Where else can you find a book that has beautiful maidens and evil faeries as well as celebrity chefs and rock stars?

Plot: Each story can be read separate without confusion but it is best to read them all in order as the follow on after the events of the previous story. Unlike a lot of short story collections, where each story is completely separate and unrelated, Miserable Middles has a progressive plot and timeline as each story is interlinked and features some of the same characters.

Writing: The writing was definitely the stand out point of the book, especially in terms of style. It was very reminiscent of the writings of classic fairy tales and as a huge fan of the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, I was instantly captivated. Each story had just the right mix of highs, lows, grimness and wit needed to pull them off and I look forward to future works by both authors.

David’s Rating: The best way to describe this book is to say that if Tim Burton and the Grimm Brothers were to (somehow) write a collection of short stories, then it would be something like this. The title may be Miserable Middles, but by the end of this book I was certainly left feeling happy that I had read it.