- Publisher: Trapeze
- Edition: Audio, Ebook
- ISBN: B08PK33SRS
- Published: March 18, 2021
Synopsis
The Night Train is the first anthology of short stories by Sharon Bolton. It contains eight stories, most of which are based on characters from her previously published books, and includes:
From the world of the Craftsmen
The Night Train
Alive!
All Soul’s Eve
From the world of Lacey Flint
Mugwort and Moonbeams
Lacey’s Wedding
From the world of Dead Woman Walking
Time Travel, Flight and Invisibility
In a world of its own…
Mr and Mrs Jansen and the Mermaid
And from the world of The Split
The Snow Bride
Preface
Short stories are hard. Fewer words to set a scene, introduce a character, weave a plot; fewer words to make the blessed thing work. Readers of short stories are less forgiving than those who read novels – they expect to be moved, surprised, scared or amused, all within the confines of the story, and they will have no patience with the slow paragraph, even the wasted word.
I’ve shied away from short stories for much of my writing career, but from time to time come requests I’ve been unable to ignore. Crafting a short story doesn’t get any easier with practice but the sense of accomplishment upon finishing, I’ve learned, is little short of that afforded by a full-sized book.
One of the most rewarding aspects of penning smaller tales, I’ve found, is the opportunity to flesh out the bigger books. Without Alive! how would we have known the terrible last hours of the Craftsman’s first three victims. Susan, Stephen and Patsy barely merit a mention in the book, but I felt their stories deserved to be told. In Alive! they are. Likewise, the grumpy priest Father Edward – surely there was more to him than old age and belligerence? His story, All Soul’s Eve, allows us a glimpse into his troubled past.
One of my favourite characters from the Lacey Flint series was maverick herbalist Thessa Christakos. A Dark and Twisted Tide, where we first meet Thessa, is a sombre book, but her character brought much needed comic relief. Mugwort and Moonbeams, the only romance in the collection, gave me the chance to explore a little more the fun and playful side of Thessa’s character.
In The Night Train, you’ll meet characters from the worlds of Lacey Flint, The Craftsman, Dead Woman Walking and The Split, but the star of the show, to my mind at least, is undoubtedly the hero of the title story. Dwane Ogilvy, the sexton, great of heart if small in stature is the unsung hero of The Craftsman. In this work, we get to see him take his rightful place – centre stage.
