As short stories collections go, this single-author publication is quite uneven. Any anthology would have its' ups and downs, and it's exactly that with "Roxanne Riding Hood". Pretty strong opening story, few interesting and experimental pieces, some serving more as a filler.

Maybe the reason behind it is single-authorship, maybe lack of a guiding theme, but I found myself skimming through quite a few stories, even though some truly made me appreciate Bruce Harris' way with words and ability to play with the narratives and the format.

Roxanne Riding Hood and Other Dubious Tales | Bruce Harris | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a anthology of nineteen short reads by Bruce Harris, which is an eclectic mix of tales from several genres.
These are stories of seemingly ordinary people from different walks of life, each with extraordinary tales. Stories of drag queens, essential workers, delivery persons. Stories which are varied, emotional, remarkably bizarre and essentially witty character studies and exploration of human nature.

Some stories shine brighter than the rest: Roxanne Riding Hood; Ambience; Beans Broccoli, Boys; Cleaning Up; Eighty Today; The Next Train; Appetites are rare gems and are definitely the most powerful and memorable of the nineteen.

This was my first literary encounter with Harris's masterful wordmanship. Articulate, nuanced and vivid, it's a joy to read through his writing.

A word of caution though, I would highly recommend savouring each story as a standalone, one at a time.
Since, the stories are not thematically cohesive, reading them in one seating, one after the other, while tempting, would not yield the best reading experience.

In a Nutshell: A multi-genre single-author story collection. Has some interesting tales, but the stories are too disparate in genre and theme, so I couldn’t get into a proper reading groove.

This collection of nineteen stories spans multiple genres such as science fiction, contemporary drama, humour, and crime. There’s no author’s note to help us understand the intent behind this pooling of such discrete tales. The blurb refers to this as a “collection of prize-winning stories that celebrate life’s absurdities and contradictions.” Too vague a description, though it does suit some of the stories.

There were many enjoyable stories herein. But the main problem I faced was of not being able to settle into a rhythm because of the lack of a connecting theme. Reading a sci-fi humour immediately after a parenting drama is weird. Maybe if I had stuck to reading only one story each time I picked up the book, the result wouldn’t have felt so jumpy.

The writing is good: not overly descriptive but detailed enough to help us visualise the scene. Many of the stories carry a thread of humour that sometimes borders into sarcasm. These were the best ones for me. Quite a few of the tales are written in first person, but in a couple of them with female narrators, I felt like the first-person *voice* didn’t sound female. I really don’t know how to explain this precisely. But when we read a first person, there are always cues to help us understand the gender of the speaker, right? In these cases, the writing clues sounded like a man’s voice. This happens only in a couple of the tales, so maybe they were older works, not sure.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the nineteen stories, nine stories reached or crossed the four star mark for me. Most of the rest were clustered around 3-3.5 stars – I liked them but didn’t love them. My top favourites were:
✤ Roxanne Riding Hood: A drag queen helps the police to nab a serial molester. Sometimes, a predictable story also ends up as enjoyable because of the main character. This is one such case. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫
✤ The Next Train: A mother’s musing over her son who seems to be hopping from course to course with depending upon his girlfriend. Loved the way the emotions of the mother were captured so realistically in this tale. No blind love, only tough love. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫
Other honourable mentions with four stars were ‘Ambience’, ‘Matching Up’, ‘Cleaning Up’, ‘A Working Boat’, ‘Eighty Today’, ‘These Foolish Things’, and ‘Beans, Broccoli, Boys’.


All in all, this was a good collection. I just wish there had been some kind of an underlying theme to the tales, as they felt too randomised to be a part of a unified collection. Still, it has enough entertainment to offer to short story lovers.

3.6 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the stories.

My thanks to Cranthorpe Millner Publishers and NetGalley for the DRC of “Roxanne Riding Hood: And Other Dubious Tales”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Thank you very much netgalley for this ARC which was simply, a joy to read. It's been a while since I've read a short story collection and this book has some jems. Roxanne riding Hood (I just wish there was more to this particular story), appetites, beans broccoli boys and the art of hearing was some of my favourite stories in this collection. I will be checking out on this authors work more. Simply loved it.