Awkward Rhymes and The Spaces in Between : 12 Short Stories, 12 Poems and a Rant

Placed somewhere within the limits of our body and the limitless domain of our imagination, there is the source of tales.

But where do they come from? Who knows? No good asking the author, who claims she is just a "scribe to the Muse". This collection shows Victoria Pike's keen sense of the absurd and the surreal, in simple language and spare prose.

On the grounds that everything is interesting, she notes the contradictions and ambivalence of human nature and finds that far-reaching themes can be contained in our small everyday existence. The subjects of the stories cross borders and continents, and they travel from Victorian times to the present, including some spells in a parallel dimension.

From the crocheting Gypsy who aspires to become a first-class cobbler, to the plight of a bird in a '50s -style dress; from the descendant of Lucifer freelancing as a Good Samaritan, to the Queen's latest role as a life-coach, this small volume is filled with humour and horror, serenity and shock, pathos and bathos, all dropped from the same pen. The poems - on hope, love, life, art, war, and a cat called Morris - are placed in between the stories to act as passing clouds, for readers to clutch and keep hold of as they are led, dangling, on an extraordinary journey.

This book provides an entertaining, unpredictable, good-hearted good read.