📚#ShortStories Set in London. Sherry Reviews London Tales by Tim Walker for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Sherry.

Sherry blogs here https://sherryfowlerchancellor.com/

Rosie’s Book Review Team

Sherry has been reading London Tales by Tim Walker.

London Tales is a collection of short stories through time that all have a central London theme. There are a range of styles and some are more snippets of action rather than full tales.

I enjoyed the first few stories and I particularly liked the third one about Wat Tyler because it was told from the point of view of the peasants as well as the lords.

The story of Holly and the girl who fell through the ice in 1814  was fun to read during an ice cold day in my town. It made me glad to have heat and warm socks! 

I thought that the build up to the story set during the London Blitz was good, but the ending left me a little disappointed.

There are several other stories in this collection but they were less appealing to me and overall the book was okay, but not as good as I had hoped.

3 stars

Book description:

London Tales is a collection of eleven short stories that offer dramatic pinpricks in the rich tapestry of London’s timeline, a city with two thousand years of history. They are glimpses of imagined lives at key moments, starting with a prologue in verse from the point of view of a native Briton tribeswoman absorbing the shock of Roman invasion. The first story is a tense historical adventure set in Roman Londinium in 60 CE from the perspective of terrified legionaries and townsfolk facing the vengeful Iceni queen, Boudica, whose army burnt the fledgling city to the ground.

Further historical dramas take place in 1381 during the Peasant’s Revolt, the Great Fire of London, in 1666 and the last ice fair on the frozen Thames in 1814. These are followed by a romance set during the Blitz in 1941, then the swinging Sixties and wide-flared seventies are remembered in the life story of fictional policeman, Brian Smith. Moving on, an East End family get a fright from copycat killings that are a throwback to the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders.

There’s a series of contemporary stories that reference recent events, including the London terrorist bombings of 2005, a literary pub crawl and a daring prison break, building to the imagined death throes of London in a chilling, dystopian vision. These stories are loosely inspired by the author’s personal experiences and reflections on his time living and working in London in the 1980’s and 90’s. Adaptability, resilience, conformity and resolve are recurring themes.

London Tales evokes the city’s rich history and showcases the qualities that were needed by Londoners at various times to survive and prosper – from the base and brutal, devious and inspired, to the refined and civilized.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS