Tag Archives: Amanda Huggins

#BookReview ‘The Blue of You’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #contemporary

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I read the 120-page novella The Blue of You by Amanda Huggins in an afternoon, drawn into the story by her exploration of relationships old and new, the imprints of the former on a fresh start. Amanda HugginsIn 2010, a tragedy in her northern hometown sends Janey south to London. A lost friend, a parting from her first love. When she returns alone to Langwick Bay years later, she’s still lost and searching for something. Janey is at sea emotionally and geographically, but her hometown is her anchor. It is the death of her friend Alice when they were teenagers that magnetically brings Janey home. The loss is painful still and, after spending the intervening years stabbing her guilt with the sharp tip of a knife, she seeks resolution. Alice died at Christmas and Janey’s annual celebrations ever since have been loaded with grief and regret. The Blue of You takes place in the lead up to Christmas 2022.
Not sure if she will resettle permanently in Langwick Bay, Janey begins to heal when she meets Tom Inglewood, a coble fisherman who is part of a group of local men trying to preserve the traditional way of fishing. ‘Tom has never told me how he feels in the everyday language I know, has never used the word love, but has shown me his love every day – there is love in mending nets, in advising and helping the lads in the village, there is love in the way he watches and reads the sky and the sea. He knows love better than I do.’ Tom’s solid presence, his undemanding acceptance of Janey and his unspoken but visible love for her, help her to think clearly of Alice and, for the first time as a adult, to explore what really happened.
The Blue of You is firmly anchored in its location. Huggins is a northern writer and her love of the place shines out on every page. Janey has always missed home, longs to return, but now she is back she’s not sure what, or who, she’s looking for. Only that she wants to make peace with her past, and move on. But the locals don’t recognise her, assuming her to be yet another incomer who doesn’t appreciate or have interest in the local way of life. When she does meet an old acquaintance, it doesn’t go as expected.
Finally she beings to talk about Alice. ‘Every detail is clear as day in my head, but the words stick to my tongue like glue the moment I start to speak.’ She talks to Stella, Alice’s mother; to Rory, her first love; and to Tom, who encourages her to remember with fondness not regret.
This is a story of sadness and hope told with delicacy and sensitivity, a coming to terms with difficult memories. Of recognising the impossibility of moving on until the truth is faced.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
‘Smash all the Windows’ by Jane Davis
‘When All is Said’ by Anne Griffin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview THE BLUE OF YOU by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8wa via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- David Hewson

#BookReview ‘Each of us a Petal’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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All of human life is reflected in the perceptive short stories by Amanda Huggins and the focus of her latest anthology, Each of us a Petal, is Japan. From city streets and bars to the silence of snow-covered mountains, Huggins’ love and knowledge of the country shine clearly. It is her love song for Japan, its people, its heritage, countryside and traditions. Amanda HugginsThe Japanese lens brings a new flavour to themes familiar from earlier anthologies, of love and loss, being adrift and on the outside or left behind, and notions of identity. The small details are beautifully described. Ume, who collects champagne and oranges to start her day with a mimosa. Suzume who catches a glimpse of graceful cranes through a train window, ‘their black-tipped wings lit by the sun.’ Huggins has sat in the late night bars watching salarymen down glass after glass of whisky, she has walked the mountain paths where bears may lurk in shadows. As well as winning the Saboteur Award for Best Novella twice, prizes for poetry and the 2018 Costa Short Story Award runner-up award, she is also an award-winning travel writer. In Each of Us a Petal, these disciplines and insight are drawn together.
One of my favourite stories, one I found myself thinking about days later, is the shortest. ‘Sparrow Footprints’ is only one page, a brief tale as delicate as a bird’s footprints in the snow but the emotional message between the words is heavy and oh so familiar to anyone who has loved.
‘The Knife Salesman from Kochi’ is a longer tale with a shock at the end. Mr Omote is the knife salesman from Kochi who stays at the inn owned by Yumi, inherited from her mother. Huggins explores a depth of grief that, once the surface signs have faded, lurks deeply hidden from even those closest.
‘Stolen’ is about the illicit freedom that comes with anonymity, questioning how well you know yourself and the one that you are closest to. Anna and Keizo meet friends in the woodlands in moonlight, it is kitsune festival time and families picnic, children play, many wear masks. Keizo’s friends all wear traditional fox masks which cover the whole of the face, Anna and Keizo are given masks too. When couples begin disappearing into the woods, hand in hand, Keizo says they are taking advantage of the privacy offered by the trees.
Huggins is a master of condensing emotion into a few pages, focusing on one element and exploring it with precision and beauty. I finished the book and immediately started leafing through the pages again, searching for favourites to re-read. The title of the anthology is a quote from Huggins’ essay ‘Each of Us a Petal,’ included in this book, and refers to cherry blossom.
CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK AT THE AUTHOR’S WEBSITE

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Town Called Solace’ by Mary Lawson
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘Anderby Wold’ by Winfred Holtby

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview EACH OF US A PETAL by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7h2 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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An Unfamiliar Landscape, the new short story collection by Amanda Huggins, is made for dipping in and out of, comprising longer reads with satisfying snappy flash fiction. There is something in every story that made me think, ‘that’s so right,’ or ‘that happened to me,’ or ‘I know how that feels.’ That’s why everyone should read her work. Amanda HugginsThe landscape changes from story to story, from Huggins’ native Yorkshire via Paris and London to Spain and Japan. Each story offers a glimpse of a relationship, an insight into the emotions of love, hope, longing, loss, betrayal, regret and grief. She writes about everyone’s emotions, her stories seem familiar, so well-worn and lived-in they must be true.
‘Ten of Hearts’ is a short, hard-hitting story about magic, about vulnerability, gullibility and sleight of hand. Once bitten, it is difficult to move to a new relationship but often too easy. A previous version of this story was broadcast on BBC Radio Leeds in 2021.
In ‘Eating Unobserved,’ Marnie rents an apartment in Paris where she will work on her next book. Seduced by the beauty of the apartment and the simple delight of the food, she spends her time alone. Until one dark night she sees a light on in an apartment opposite, a man unpacks groceries and pours a glass of wine. For a few nights she watches him, and then grows bolder.
Sam and Isla are in the kitchen in ‘In the Time it Takes to Make a Risotto.’ He is chopping vegetables and she is reading headlines off her phone, reciting his horoscope, sharing crossword clues. As he cooks, her mind returns to the affair she had with his best friend, the lies she has told and secrets kept. As the risotto cooks, the atmosphere tightens with words unspoken.
In other stories, a teenage daughter challenges her father; a tourist visits a war grave on behalf of a friend; a young waiter delivers a room service tray to an older female guest.
Themes recur. Food, the eating and drinking of; the freeing sensation of being somewhere foreign, somewhere that is not home; the assumptions made on first meetings and the subsequent challenging of those perceptions; the making of repeat mistakes; and the time it takes to grieve, both for loved ones, and for chances lost or misused.
Excellent.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ by Victoria Hislop
‘Yuki Chan in Bronte Country’ by Mick Jackson
‘Big Sky’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5Qr via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Crossing the Lines’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #novella

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I read Crossing the Lines, the new novella by Amanda Huggins – whose previous book won the 2021 Saboteur Award for Best Novella – in one sitting. Based on Red, Huggins’ runner-up in the 2018 Costa Short Story Award, this is the fuller story of runaway Mollie and her dog, Hal. Amanda Huggins Fifteen-year old Mollie grows up on the New Jersey shoreline at Atlantic City but when her mother moves to boyfriend Sherman Rook’s home five states away in the west, Mollie goes too. She hasn’t even arrived at Oakridge Farm when she knows she’s made a mistake, and that her mother has too. At her new home she makes one friend, a stray dog. Then after weeks on edge waiting every night for the sinister Rook to stumble in from the bar and rattle the locked door of her bedroom, Mollie hears a gunshot in the henhouse and sees the body of a dead dog. She grabs $20, a road map and a sweater and sneaks out of the house. When she sees Rook’s pick-up with the keys in the ignition, she takes that too.
This is a road trip back east as Mollie faces situations and people unknown, strange, threatening and well-meaning. The driver whose daughter ran away. The store owner whose dog died. The biker who offers her a bed for the night.
Huggins is always a delightful author to read. This story is tightly controlled but her language roams free with some poetic turns of phrase and descriptions that make the emotions, and the dusty Seventies mid-America landscape, seem real. In 139 pages she gives us not only Mollie’s dilemma and the solution she pursues, but the viewpoints of characters she meets along the way and their impression of the girl with the dog. And underlaid beneath it all is Mollie’s past, her friends back east, her regrets, guilt and longing for father Phil and brother Angel. Life, she learns, should be lived forwards. Mollie greets every day as a surprise.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘The End of the Day’ by Bill Clegg
‘If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview CROSSING THE LINES by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5nA via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘All Our Squandered Beauty’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #grief

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At 122 pages, All Our Squandered Beauty by Yorkshire writer Amanda Huggins packs a powerful punch. It is a sensitively managed novella of a teenager navigating young love, relationships and sex while pulled underwater by grief for the father who died when she was young. His disappearance at sea has never been explained, his body never found; but gossip is becoming history. Kara Bradshaw, believing he would never leave her, hangs on to memories of time they spent together, sure of his love. Amanda HugginsIt is 1978 at Elmwick Bay in Yorkshire. Kara’s youth was punctuated by life beside the sea, gathering sea glass from the sand, identifying the birds flying overhead, watching stars in the night sky, tales of local legends and folklore. All occupations she enjoyed with her father. Now as a seventeen-year-old, Kara hangs out with bikers at Charelli’s café and the amusement arcade but fancies her art teacher, Leo. A thread running throughout the book is that all is not always as it seems, something Kara must understand if she is to accept the past and move on into adulthood. But first she must acknowledge her grief and let her father go.
A promising artist, Kara cannot wait to leave school for university in London. But her best friend Louise seems happy to settle for a life at home with her boyfriend, and Kara’s mother has moved inland where the sea is out of sight. Kara knows her boyfriend Marty would like to marry her and have babies, but she wants more. More love, more life, just more. Huggins writes with delicacy about a fragile teenager who knows what she wants but not why, seeking a path of learning without a father to guide her. Seven years have passed since villagers gossiped that Ged Bradshaw hadn’t really died at sea but ran away with Lola Armitage. Kara sees Lola everywhere, follows her only to discover it is someone she has never seen before.
Kara, unable to understand she still grieves for her father in hundreds of small ways, is seeking definitive answers to unanswerable questions. She looks for escape and finds it in art teacher Leo who offers her place at a summer art school in Greece, funded by the Philip Patou Art Foundation. Kara jumps at the chance. What she finds in Greece is not what she expected. Huggins is a successful travel writer and her description of the island of Lyros is beautiful, seen through the eyes of artist Kara who compares it with her seaside hometown.
This coming-of-age story passes quickly, I read it in two sittings and was left curious. I longed to see more – of Kara’s childhood and of the woman she will become. All Our Squandered Beauty is the story of one summer in her life, interwoven with reminiscences of her father. Huggins’ writing is, as always, delightful, her technical skill invisible on the page leaving the reader to dwell on the emotions. The short fiction form doesn’t allow the exploration in depth of all Huggins’ themes, and hopefully she is turning her attention to a novel.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘A Week in Paris’ by Rachel Hore
‘The Last Day’ by Claire Dyer
‘The Cheesemaker’s House’ by Jane Cable

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-56j via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Scratched Enamel Heart’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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Scratched Enamel Heart, the latest collection by award-winning short story writer Amanda Huggins, does not disappoint. Featuring ‘Red’, the story shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Short Story Award, the other stories include some gems. Amanda HugginsThere are three stories that stayed with me, returning to me at unexpected moments when I had moved on to another book.
‘Light Box’ is about Alice, a daughter grieving for the loss of her father but glad to be free of the stepmother she never liked, who had tried to wipe the house and their memories clear of Alice’s mother. Huggins has a wonderful simplicity of description that feels just right, such as the beach, ‘a slip of a thing, a nail clipping of pale sand beneath a wide sky.’
With a darker tone than any other story by Huggins that I recall reading before, ‘Uncanny’ is unsettling. When I remember it, it leaves a sense of discomfort. Like looking over your shoulder when walking in the dark, clutching your bag to your side. Perhaps she should try writing suspense fiction. Alan eats every night in the same café where Carol is a waitress. It starts when she comments that a blue shirt would suit him, would go with the colour of his eyes. He buys five.
The last story in this collection, ‘This Final Perfect Thing’ is unbearably poignant. A perfect, short, short story. This is what Huggins excels at, distilling human emotion into two pages that anyone can read and feel deeply too.
Huggins is a consummate story writer, as comfortable with the long form as with the briefest of flash fictions and poetry. Her settings vary from India to Japan, Istanbul to the English seaside and she makes each location real, real for her characters and real for me as I read.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Staying Afloat’ by Sue Wilsea
‘The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth’ by William Boyd
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4ZY via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Out Chasing Boys’ by Amanda Huggins #poetry

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Recently published is this small poetry chapbook, The Collective Nouns for Birds by Amanda Huggins, with 24 poems. Huggins is an award-winning writer of flash fiction and short stories, so knowing her skill with the short form I looked forward to this first poetry chapbook with anticipation. And I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve chosen the first poem in the book as it struck a chord from my own childhood. I can smell the salt in the breeze, hear the lapping of the summer waves on the shore and taste the tang of vinegar as I lick my fingers after eating haddock and chips. Amanda HugginsThis poem is subject to copyright restrictions. Please search for the full poem in an anthology or at your local library. A ‘poetry chapbook’ is a slim pamphlet of poems, usually no more than 40 pages.

‘Out Chasing Boys’
We spent summer on the seafront,
two stranded mermaids
killing time.
We rolled up our jeans,
carried our shoes,
blew kisses at the camera
in the photo booth.
Always out, chasing boys,
as if we had forever.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘A Thousand Years You Said’ by Lady Heguri
‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ by Michael Ondaatje
‘After a Row’ by Tom Pickard

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Poetry ‘Out Chasing Boys’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4v6 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Separated from the Sea’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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About love, loss, partings and freedom. About yearning for a connection with another person but sometimes recognising it is better to walk away. Separated from the Sea by Amanda Huggins is a collection of poignant stories that cannot fail to touch you. Some of the stories spoke to me personally because of the Yorkshire settings, but locations range from Japan to America and Europe. Huggins has mastered the form; just enough detail, just enough emotion to pull you in and a well-disguised twist at the end. Amanda HugginsI have chosen three stories to focus on. In ‘Whatever Speed She Dared’ a woman drives on an empty motorway across the Pennines in the dark of night. She is tempted by what lies ahead, a new future. But an encounter with a skittish rabbit gives her pause for thought.
In ‘Sea Glass’ two children walk on the beach. Alife tells Cathy that pieces of blue sea glass are the souls of fishermen lost at sea. Another two pieces, he says, are the eyes of ships’ cats swept overboard. ‘If you match a pair of eyes, and sleep with them under your pillow, then the cat’ll find his way back to land.’ A melancholic longing for love and belonging that cuts to the heart.
In ‘Already Formed’, a woman watches a boy arrive at the holiday cottage next door and his presence prompts memories of her son Rory. A child that never was but still exists in the core of the heart, more true than a true love that was a mirage. A sad story, totally believable.
Huggins is a highly accomplished writer who uses language both beautiful and at the same time sparing, there are no indulgent passages of prose to detract from the main message. Every word is weighed before inclusion. A delight.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins, including another novella, collections of short stories & poetry:-
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
EACH OF US A PETAL
CROSSING THE LINES
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
THE BLUE OF YOU
THE COLLECTIVE NOUN FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson
‘Staying Afloat’ by Sue Wilsea
‘Last Stories’ by William Trevor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SEPARATED FROM THE SEA by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3qn via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Brightly Coloured Horses’ by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish #shortstories

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‘Twenty-seven very short human stories’ it says on the cover of Brightly Coloured Horses by Mandy Huggins. Many of them are competition winners. This is the first anthology by this Yorkshire writer, but these are not the stories of a beginner. She is a talented writer of the human state of mind who chooses every single word with care, and makes every single word work hard to convey its meaning. It has to in a flash fiction story; there is no space for indulgence on the part of the writer. Amanda HugginsWomen, and men, fall in love, out of love, they grieve for what they have lost or never had, their attraction is instant, fading or lustful opportunity, they feel cherished, desired or neglected. I’ve chosen three stories to discuss. Huggins is excellent on the many shades of the human relationship and the titular ‘Brightly Coloured Horses’ is a key example. Marielle and Hugh arrive in Paris for a romantic weekend. ‘The food was mediocre: the bread was yesterday’s and their omelettes were overcooked. She smiled, and said it was fine, and they both drank too much wine because they knew it wasn’t.’ Their disengagement with each other is familiar to anyone whose relationship has broken down. Marielle knows what is happening, wills it not to, wonders why they are in Paris and decides to make her own memories of the city.
My favourites in this collection were often the shortest. ‘Flight Path’ is barely 100 words but conjures up such a clear picture of a place and a moment in time. To describe it is to spoil its effect, so I won’t. It is the first story in the collection, quite rightly.
I chose ‘Kisses’ as my third story, based purely on its opening line: ‘Kevin Healey’s kisses tasted like dunked biscuits.’ Julie is in Tesco when she sees a man she last saw, and kissed, at a teenage Christmas party. Huggins explores the memory of lost teenage years, the yearning promise of something that never was, the hesitant wonder if it could be again.

Read my reviews of other work by Amanda Huggins:-
Novellas
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
CROSSING THE LINES
THE BLUE OF YOU
Short stories
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE
EACH OF US A PETAL
SCRATCHED ENAMEL HEART
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
Poetry
THE COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR BIRDS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ ed. by Victoria Hislop
‘All the Rage’ by AL Kennedy
‘Normal Rules Don’t Apply’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES by Amanda Huggins @troutiemcfish https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3lS via @SandraDanby