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. 
The 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.
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Click the title to read my reviews of other short stories, novellas and poetry by Amanda Huggins:-
ALL OUR SQUANDERED BEAUTY
BRIGHTLY COLOURED HORSES
CROSSING THE LINES
SEPARATED FROM THE SEA
THE COLLECTIVE NOUN 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:-
AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE by @troutiemcfish #shortstories https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5Qr via @SandraDanby
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.
Maggie explains, “Workhouse Orphan, inspired by a brave young man way back in my family history and dedicated to him, tells the story of a boy forced at a very tender age to leave his siblings behind in their grim London workhouse and work down a Yorkshire coal mine. Despite the hardships he encounters, he never loses sight of his wish to reunite the family. While not originally intended to be a book for children – it’s actually suitable for anyone with an interest in social history – I’ve been told by parents that it’s made a good bedtime read and given their own offspring cause to realise how lucky they are!”
What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects 
Winifred Holtby was born seven miles from where I was born and I have always felt a connection with her, forged primarily by reading South Riding as a teenager and reinforced by re-reading and two television series. And she also did what I wanted to do; she left the Yorkshire Wolds and became a writer. But until now, I am ashamed to say, I had not read her earlier novels. Anderby Wold is her first; published in 1923 it is a portrayal of a Yorkshire Wolds village in the first years of the twentieth century. I was struck by the similarity to Jane Austen: both focus on the personalities, tensions, the pettiness, resentments and emotions of small communities, and both combine acute social observations with sharp humour.
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