Reading along, I spent the first half of this novel a bit confused… there were six good, solid stories, but what was D J Pratt, the author, doing?  Are these simply short stories?  Is it a thinly-veiled attempt to build plot around gratuitous erotic themes?  Or is there more… perhaps a lot more… going on here as the book weaves its spell in these journeys.

I don’t want to spoil this for you, but I’ll tell you, yes, there is.  There’s a lot more going on.  By the end of the first half, you’ll think you understand it all, but – POW – the last line tells you it’s not over.  And by then, it’s got you!  As the second half progresses, the weave gets tighter, the characters tell the rest of their stories and that makes the experiences of the first half all that much richer.  And it builds to a dramatic climax, then climaxes again in the denouement.

Not simply a book of short stories, the ending is so satisfying and surprising, it made me cry.  The book goes from good to great in surprising ways.

I love when a book seems straightforward, but after reading it, I have to ask “how did the author do that?”  This is one of those books.  I highly recommend it… but stick it out!  It’s very digestible – you can read it as twelve short stories in satisfying sessions and not feel the agony of  trying to remember what happened two chapters ago; but the whole novel is still knit in a way that… well… it just works.