Tag Archives: Historical

December 12, 2024 · 1:00 am

Winter Solstice Delights: A Review of Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Book cover for Midwinter Magic and Mayhem edited by Frances Evelyn. Image on cover is a drawing of a pale-skinned woman who is standing outside in a snowstorm with no clothes on. (You can only see her face, neck, and a little bit of her shoulders). Her straight, dark blonde hair is swirling around her head and she is staring at the audience with a serious expression on her face as the snow blows around her. Title: Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Author: edited by Frances Evelyn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 15, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Holiday, Romance, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 199 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Short stories for the darkest of nights
Midwinter fantasy from award-winning fantasy authors

Witches, demons, spirits and ghosts haunt these pages, tricking, trapping and seducing unwary mortals. Humans, meanwhile, are wielding magic and the spirits for their own ends, with no guarantee of good intentions or great success. Along the way, God and Lucifer wash their hands of us all.

Real-world and epic fantasy rub shoulders with fantasy romance and horror in this new collection of short stories by much-loved authors. Ration yourself to one a night to colour your dreams or binge through them all in search of your next favourite series.

Why so cheap? What’s the catch?
Don’t you worry about that. Just put out your hand and let us take you into the chill of a winter night. What could possibly go wrong?

Content Warning: Migraines. Ancient curses and ancient blessings. Characters drinking alcohol. Hypothermia. Death. I will not discuss any of these topics in my review.

Review:

Prepare for something delightful.

Galyna received warnings in her dreams from one of her ancestors about various forms of danger that were threatening her and those she loved “The Horse Woman.” This was something established pretty early on on in the storyline, so I don’t consider it a spoiler. What I found interesting about this tale is that Galyna’s ancestor had lived so many generations ago that nobody in the family knew anything about her other than these few sparse facts. Imagine getting warnings from someone so far back in one’s family tree. Where the storyline went from there surprised me and made it difficult to stop reading. What creativity! I’d read an entire book about these characters if such a thing existed.

“Daisy” showed what happened when Janie decided to adopt an odd little stray cat that showed up in her garden one autumn. There are so many details of this story that I can’t share without giving away the plot twists, but what I can say is that I loved Janie’s compassion for her new pet no matter how strange life became for the two of them. One of my all-time favorite tropes involves ordinary people performing acts of kindness for those who can’t possibly repay them. There is something so wholesome about someone who simply wants to make the world a better place in whatever small ways they can without any expectations of being noticed or thanked, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of reading about these quiet, sweet moments that happen regularly both in fiction and and in real life.

One of the things that frightens me the most about winter is the possibility of getting stuck outdoors in the cold for too long. After Jessica’s car died, she became so hypothermic she fell asleep and then woke up in a bizarre bar in ‘The Spirit of Winter.” Due to the dangerous beginning of this story, I was pleasantly surprised by where it meandered off to after Jessica’s exposure to the cold weather began to affect her so seriously. It was not at all what I was expecting, but it worked well for the characters and plot and gave me multiple hints about how it could be interpreted depending upon how a reader reacts to certain clues.

Midwinter Magic and Mayhem was the perfect read for the holiday season.

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November 21, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Space Race: A Review of The Paean Project

Book cover for The Paean Project by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows Earth as viewed from the moon. You can see just a sliver of the moon - including moon dust - on the bottom of the page. Then there is a lot of inky blackness of space before the little blue Earth comes into view. It’s a cloudy day there and you can see swirls of large clouds over the ocean. Title: The Paean Project

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 11, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Historical

Length: 7 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In this short alternative history science fiction story, we have the journal of a Navy engineer brought into a secret project to continue manned spaceflight trials after the first attempt to reach the moon ended in tragedy. The project drew together some of the best minds of the Navy and the Air Force, as they worked to put a man around the moon. This journal is the only surviving record.

Content Warning:

Review:

If you love epistolary stories, keep reading!

I adored the fact that this was written as a series of journal entries. That’s not a very common style of storytelling these days, but it can work beautifully in certain cases like this one. Let me point out that Mr. Kohn didn’t have a lot of space for plot or character development here, but he used every last sentence to wring out as much of both of them as roughly seven pages would allow for. That is not an easy thing to accomplish, so I will tip my cap to him for making this such a pleasant reading experience overall. By framing everything as journal entries, he pulled this reader into the burning question of what was really happening on this secret project and how much the government may or may not know about the dangers these characters were facing.

As much as I wanted to give this tale a higher rating, the ending made it difficult for me to do that due to how little was resolved in it. This is something I’m saying as a longtime fan of the science fiction genre who doesn’t expect every loose end to be tied up. Some mystery is a fabulous thing in this genre, but in this case I think the plot would have been more satisfying – for me, at least – if the last journal entry or the post script had given some clue about what truly happened to these characters.

With that being said, this was still a positive first impression for me as someone who was brand new to this author’s work. He had a smooth writing style that was easy to sink into as the unnamed protagonist became more unnerved by the strange things occurring during and soon after the manned spaceflight trial. There was a lot of promise here, and I hope he keeps writing. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from him.

The Paean Project was thought provoking.

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November 7, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Book cover for Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story by Steven Glick. Image on cover is a black and white photo of a young, white, male soldier who is wearing an old uniform and, oddly enough for this era, smiling a little. Title: Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Author: Steven Glick

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 13, 2024

Genres: Mystery, Paranormal, LGBTQ, Historical

Length: 15 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Dreams and reality merge in this fateful story of a World War One soldier’s homecoming.

Content Warning: Grief, war, and death. Nothing is graphically described,  but World War I was not exactly a cheerful era.

Review:

The destructive forces of war should never be underestimated.

Social conventions can change rapidly over the generations, so I appreciated how clearly Mr. Glick explained exactly what and wasn’t expected from men, women, spouses, and children in the late 1910s as far as how they behaved and what interests they were supposed to have. For example, men were expected to suppress certain emotions no matter what was going on in their lives. These details were important for understanding part of the reason why David, the young soldier who was coming home for a short leave, felt so out of place in the world.

In some other genres, the foreshadowing here would have been too strong, but for this particular tale it was perfect. Claire, David’s mother, had access to so little information about how the war was going or how her son was doing that readers needed these hints in order for her walk home from Christmas shopping to make sense. (It was roughly 1918, after all, and decades away from anything like the Internet to keep families connected during tough times). Figuring out the plot twists in advance wasn’t the point here in my opinion. Instead, I gently followed along as Claire bought some very last minute gifts and worried about her child.

The ending fit the themes of this story nicely. Interestingly enough, it also provided the most mysterious elements of this piece!, so keep reading if the beginning and middle don’t feel like a typical mystery to you. I enjoyed the way the author played around with the expectations of this genre and thought it blended in well with the paranormal and LGBTQ+ themes, too. Sometimes things need to be rearranged a little in order to successfully mix genres together, and it worked quite well here, indeed.

Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story was poignant and beautiful.

 

(If you liked this review or want more paranormal World War I stories in your life, go check out my reviews of An English Heaven and The Last Photograph of John Buckley.)

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September 26, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Glass Key

Book cover for The Glass Key by Benjamin Parsons. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of a beautiful, curvy woman of indeterminate ethnicity wearing a long, flowing gown walking towards a man whose hands are raised up in surprise and amazement. Title: The Glass Key

Author: Benjamin Parsons

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 19, 2012

Genres: Romance, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 46 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

All alone on a howling night, with the fire blazing in the hearth, you hear a key turn in the lock – and see the apparition of your long-lost love enter the room… For ten years Sam neither saw nor heard of his beautiful Araminta, who vanished before their wedding day – but now, suddenly she steps into his life again, with a fantastic adventure to tell: her journey to unlock the secret of the mysterious glass key. Part of the collection The Green Lady and Other Stories.

Content Warning: Adultery.

Review:

Unconditional love isn’t realistic, but it sure is romantic.

The gothic elements of the plot were handled nicely. Yes, this had a historical setting so far as I could tell, but nearly everything that happened in it could just as easily occur today. It’s tricky to create such a timeless storyline, so I must tip my cap to the author for not only pulling it off but for encouraging readers to think critically before decided which era this tale might have happened. Strong arguments can be made for many different time periods depending on how certain context clues are interpreted and what assumptions the reader makes about the rest of it.

It would have been helpful to have more time spent dedicated to explaining what really happened to Araminta. As poetic as it was for these former lovers to be reunited, I kept wishing she would stop dancing around the subject and tell him exactly what she did after their engagement ended. Their breakup caused both of them a great deal of psychological pain even while accounting for the reasons for it. There was plenty of space left here to explore the repercussions of that as well as what both characters thought about their decisions now that they’d had about a decade to mull over it.

Taking risks is something I love to see in every genre I read, and writing a romantic story about a couple who had a hard breakup definitely doesn’t seem to be common for the romance genre from what I’ve observed. I was intrigued by the idea of Araminta and Sam having a chance to talk again and dissect what went wrong in their relationship. While I’ll leave it up to other readers to decide which one of them them to side with – or maybe to decide that neither character is someone they want to root for at all – I will say here that Mr. Parsons has added something valuable to this genre that I hope other romance and speculative fiction writers will find inspiration in his creativity as well.

The Glass Key was thought provoking.

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September 12, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Into the Weeping Waters

Book cover for Into the Weeping Waters by Lee Murray. Image on cover shows a young, pale woman with long, straight dark hair standing up and looking down at her feet. She’s wearing a flowing white nightdress and appears to be standing on the bed of a river or lake. She is submerged in the dark, murky water and is standing near what appears to be wreckage from a crash of some sort. It looks more like a large machine than a boat, though, so maybe it was dumped in the water? You can see a few large wires coming out of this device whatever it is as well as a piece on it that looks like a wagon wheel or possibly a motor of some sort. Title: Into the Weeping Waters

Author: Lee Murray

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 21, 2024

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 36 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Taking the train home for Christmas eve, McKenna’s mentor, the Māori prophet Rawiri Temera, is plunged headlong into a ghostly adventure.

Content Warning: Death, emotional and physical trauma, a train accident, and a few brief descriptions of severe injuries. I will not share any gory details, but I will need to discuss these topics in my review.

Review:

Not all tragedies can be avoided.

The rules for how ghosts behave in this world intrigued me. Somehow they knew exactly what they could and couldn’t do from the beginning without anyone explaining it to them. There were a few logical hints about how they came to this knowledge, but I think it’s best to leave the logistics of it for other readers to figure out for themselves. Not every paranormal tale spends much time thinking about what it might be like to be a ghost or how clearly the recall their previous lives, so I appreciated the fact that this one did.

I would have liked to see more plot development in this short story. There simply wasn’t much of it, and what was shared wasn’t explained like it  could have been even in a piece of this brief length. It almost felt like reading a few pages of a full-length novel instead of something that was intended to be a standalone work. That is to say, I liked what I read, but it ended too quickly for me to feel satisfied with what the narrator had to say about what happened.

Some of the most interesting scenes were the ones that described the aftermath of the crash. It was chaotic, of course, but the author also took the time to describe the little moments that could be seared into a person’s brain forever after experiencing such an event. Trauma can be like that sometimes, and I appreciated the way this was written. It was a little gory in a few places, but I could tell that was done to paint a vivid pictures of the horrors Rawiri was witnessing instead of to simply shock the readers.

As a quick aside before I finish off this review, this was set on Christmas Eve but it did not have a Christmas feeling to it at all. If anything, choosing such a typically festive time of the year for it only made the accident more heartbreaking.

Into the Weeping Waters made me shudder. 

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August 22, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Perfect Job: A Review of Pathways to Bolingbrook

Book cover for Pathways to Bolingbrook by William Brinkman. Image on cover shows a realistic drawing of two young women, one black and one Asian, gazing intently at the viewer. They are wearing long-sleeved dark shirts and jackets and look dressed for cool weather (or maybe a zombie attack!)Title: Pathways to Bolingbrook

Author: William Brinkman

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 27, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Historical

Length: 26 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Two desperate women search for answers in this gripping Urban Fantasy double-header.

Miriam craves escape from her dead-end life in Iowa City. A stranger’s offer could make her dream come true… or plunge her into a nightmare.

Sara, reporter for a struggling paper, stumbles on a cryptic recording—one she doesn’t remember making. Could uncovering the truth destroy her career… or her family?

The quiet suburb of Bolingbrook masks dark secrets. Stories about local paranormal activities fill the pages of the local tabloid, Bolingbrook Babbler. Are they just tales or terrifying truths?

Will Miriam embrace a dark path? Will Sara risk everything to expose a secret?

Review:

It takes a special sort of person to accept such dangerous and thankless work.

I enjoyed getting to know Miriam and Sarah in this introduction to their world. They were both intelligent and resourceful women who had already accomplished quite a bit with their lives before being approached by a mysterious man with the sort of job offer most folks will never be aware even exists much less have a chance to try for themselves. While they didn’t meet each other here much to my surprise, I could see a lot of similarities between their personalities that made me wonder what they’d think about each other at some point in the future when the plot does bring them together.

While I totally understand that this was written as an introduction to a series, it would have been nice to have more conflict. Almost all of it was devoted to introducing the two protagonists, briefly describing what their lives had been like so far, and giving hints about why they might decide to take on these new roles. Yes, it was interesting and completely necessary to have all of that background information, but it also meant that the characters didn’t have much to wrestle with during the brief time I knew them. I would have loved to see how they both handled some sort of small problem that could foreshadow what to expect from them in the future.

With that being said, I did enjoy the world building and little snippets of foreshadowing that occurred. Bolingbrook honestly sounds like a rough place to live, but it also seems like it could be full of wonderful surprises for Sarah and Miriam. My hope is that this will provide them plenty of conflict in later instalments as I thought there was a lot of promise here that hadn’t quite been realized yet.

Pathways to Bolingbrook was interesting.

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August 1, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Among Mirages

Book cover for Among Mirages: A Short Story by Billie Dean Shoemate III. Image on cover shows a drawing of a ship mast and a tattered sailed against a blackish-purple sky. It is past dusk and night has almost completely fallen, so precious little else can be seen in this image. Title: Among Mirages

Author: Billie Dean Shoemate III

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 8, 2020

Genres: Paranormal, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 33 pages

Source: I receive a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

The crew of the ship tell preposterous stories. Stories of dry land, of other ships that sail the ocean. Of vast cities populated by people. Odd visions. Blasphemies that would get a person tossed into the ocean. Still . . . those on the crew talk in hushed tones. Something about the ocean is haunted, and it has something to do with this ship in particular.

Billie Dean Shoemate III puts a new twist on an age-old story. The story of a ship that, when the reader figures it out, has been terrifying sailors for centuries. ‘Among Mirages’ will breathe new life into a tale that has always been told by seafaring people . . . and always will be.

Content Warning: Religion (an amalgamation of various types of Christianity).

Review:

Certainty isn’t everything.

I loved Martin, the doubtful narrator of this piece. Honestly, I would have had the exact same questions about where the ship came from and why they kept seeing things their captain insisted did not exist if I were in his shoes. The tension between observable facts and religious certainties in this universe was handled beautifully. Regardless of your thoughts on religion in general, there is a lot of food for thought here for anyone who has ever found an inconsistency in their own belief structure and puzzled over it.

This was inspired by a popular nautical legend that I wish had been shared in more detail in the last few scenes. I ended up looking it up online as I was only vaguely familiar with the stories associated with it and did not know in advance that this was going to be the theme. The storytelling would have been tighter in my opinion if a few sentences explaining this legend had been included for the sake of other readers like me, but I do look forward to hearing dissenting opinions from people who were similarly unaware of this legend and did not have my same experience here. Writing reviews is subjective, after all. What didn’t quite work for me might be perfect for someone else!

The twist at the end was excellent. I enjoyed going back and taking note of clues that were shared earlier on in the timeline I hadn’t exactly known how to fit together earlier, especially when it came to the purpose of this ship. It’s difficult to go into much detail without sharing spoilers, although I appreciated the way the author talked around the subject until it was time for the big reveal…much as I am attempting to do now! This isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, but it sure makes for an entertaining reading experience when it’s done as smoothly as it was here.

Among Mirages made me wish for a sequel.

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July 25, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Other Side of the Coin: A Review of A Fairy Tale Murder

Book cover for “A Fairy Tale Murder” by Dulcinea Norton-Smith. Image on cover is a close-up photo of assorted jelly beans. Their colours include black, orange, yellow, purple, green, light green, and red. Title: A Fairy Tale Murder

Author: Dulcinea Norton-Smith

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 11, 2011

Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Retelling

Length: 14 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Kids are always good and witches are always bad right? Wrong you idiot! Step inside A Fairy Tale Murder and discover the grisly truth.

Content Warning: Child neglect and abandonment. I will not go into any detail about this in my review.

Review:

So much depends on how you define the phrase happily ever after.

I strongly recommend going into this without reading any spoilers about it ahead of time. This is one of those cases when the plot twists work best, at least in my opinion, if the reader hasn’t been tipped off about them in advance and is hopefully surprised by everything they are about to read. What I can say is that I enjoyed looking at a famous fairy tale from a new perspective. Character development wasn’t something that most of those stories spent a lot of time thinking about, so there is a lot of room to explain why certain characters from them behaved the way they did and how their choices could be interpreted in many different ways if you finally have all of the information instead of only some of it. Kudos to the author for using this approach to breathe fresh life into something so well known.

As much as I liked the premise, I struggled with the plot holes. There were multiple instances of characters either not communicating with each other or not thinking through the rational consequences of their actions. It was understandable when the kids did it as they were traumatized and their brains were still developing, but seeing adults do the same thing so often was hard to figure out. If only a few more scenes had been included to help explain why the characters consistently made decisions that that they should have thought twice about. I so desperately wanted to give this one a higher rating!

Dympna was such an interesting protagonist. It made me smile to read about the details of her life that might have been exaggerated just a little in order to make this feel more magical. Then again, maybe everything happened exactly as she recounted and she was simply someone who broke all sorts of rules about what life in the Middle Ages was like! There is definitely something to be said for leaving such things up to the reader’s imagination and not giving us strict input about how we should interpret them.

A Fairy Tale Murder was a creative look at an old classic. Now I must end this review before I accidentally give any clues as to which one I’m talking about! 

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July 18, 2024 · 1:00 am

Supernatural Business: A Review of Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen

Book cover for Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen (Lovelace & Wick #1.5) by Jennifer Rainey. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of a woman wearing a late 1800’s style dress and a large, floppy hat. There is a small ruffle of fabric around her neck as the dress covers up every bit of her torso and arms and much of her neck, too. This drawing is surrounded by a drawing of a Victorian-style floral frame that has been drawn on top of a red, wallpaper-like surface. Title: Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen (Lovelace & Wick #1.5) by Jennifer Rainey

Author: Jennifer Rainey

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 30, 2017

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Historical, LGBTQ

Length: 79 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

As a demon, Iago Wick has made quite a career out of conjuring mischief and mayhem in the name of Hell, but this time, perhaps he’s gone a bit too far.

After deliberately foiling the plans of a spoiled vampire—all in the name of fun, really!—Iago discovers that the vampire in question is no ordinary bloodsucker. She’s the newly-appointed matriarch of one of the oldest vampire families in America, and she’s very angry.

Soon, Iago is caught in a war with the vampires and their cyborg servants. Will he settle his score with the clan of bloodsuckers or will Iago find himself at the mercy of the Vampire Queen? What precisely is the matter with those strange cybernetic servants, anyway? And most importantly, will Iago ever get the smell of garlic out of his clothes?

“Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen” is a 17,000-word short story prequel to The Lovelace & Wick Series.

Content Warning: Murder and kidnapping. I will not mention these topics in my review.

Review:

Supernatural business is nothing to mess around with.

I enjoyed the quiet and unassuming small town setting. Honestly, the residents of Marlowe probably wouldn’t have believed what was going on behind closed doors in their sleepy community even if one of the main characters had decided to reveal their true identities to everyone. Peaceful places are a good option for hiding in plain sight, and I liked the way the author showed the many ways in which awful deeds can done right under the noses of people who think they know all of the local gossip already.

This novella had a dry sense of humor that I struggled to connect with due to the terrible things that were simultaneously happening to so many of the human characters. I’d read about either one of these things on their own, but the combination of them simply didn’t work for me as a reader. It felt a little too flippant to move between an edgy joke and another description of the ways in which vampires harm the humans around them. This is a subjective piece of criticism, of course, and I’m sure there are a lot of readers out there who love this sort of dark writing style. I’m simply not one of them, and I found myself wishing I could stick to the more lighthearted elements of the plot and skip over the rest.

With that being said, Iago’s personality was such an interesting one. There was a strong, sharp sense of danger surrounding him due to the fact that he’s (obviously) a demon and therefore not exactly the most wholesome fellow around. He had his own moral code that often didn’t match up to what a human might consider a reasonable or kind thing to do, but I did admire the way he stuck to it no matter who or what might have tempted him to break the rules of hell just once.

Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen was a playful read.

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July 11, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Tapping at Twilight

Title: Tapping at Twilight Book cover for Tapping at Twilight by Kassandra Alvarado. Image on cover is a close-up photograph of an old-fashioned wooden door that has an iron hinge and knocker. Both the hinge and the knocker are rusting, and the wood on the door is cracking with age.

Author: Kassandra Alvarado

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date:  February 26, 2013

Genres: Paranormal, Historical

Length: 7 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A quiet London evening is disturbed by quiet rapping at the door, who or what could it be?

Review:

Visitors aren’t welcomed here.

Ms. Alvarado had a descriptive writing style that pulled me into the storyline before I even finished the first sentence. Seriously, it was that fast!  I adored her use of alliteration and the vivid manner in which she described even the most ordinary details of the setting. There is nothing like settling into such crisp writing while allowing it to carry you away to a faraway time and place. She is clearly a talented writer, and I hope to read more of her work soon.

With that being said, I did find myself wishing for much stronger plot development as I read this. I had so many unanswered questions by the time I finished the seventh and final page of it. By no means did I expect everything to be resolved, but it was disappointing for me as a reader to experience a rapid buildup of tension and intrigue only to be left hanging at the end about what was going on with all of the rapping at the door. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, the sudden and unsatisfying ending dampened my enjoyment of a tale that was otherwise delightful.

The protagonist’s character development was well done, though. Mister Westerfield was a sympathetic man who had been denied his greatest wish in his youth by his disapproving parents. Now that he was old and settled in life, he finally had the opportunity to make some of his own decisions about how to pass the time. It’s not as common as it ought to be for narrators who are senior citizens to be the centre of attention, so I relished getting to know this character and imagining what adventures might still await him in life.

Tapping at Twilight had an old-fashioned feel to it that suited the subject matter nicely.

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