The Highway Man by J. Alchem

Hello Everyone!
Today’s Saturday Short story review is Collection of 3 fiction stories with the title ‘The Highway Man by J. Alchem’.

The Highway Man by J. Alchem

Published: May 12th 2017

Read Date: July 6th 2017

Stars: 4/5

Blurb (in my words)–

Collection of 3 interesting stories.
Catherine- A bestselling author fall in love with his book’s fictional character.
Sidzy, For a Day- A loving husband lives a life of his wife one day.
The Highwayman- A stranger teaches grief stricken father-son how to live a life.

My view:

 
I always feel it little challenging to write review of collection of stories and even of short stories without giving away whole story. But here I’m always picking it up, because I enjoy reading short stories and it always amaze me how it makes me feel in just few pages.
My favorite line from the book:

“Good time is fleet-footed bliss. Bad time crawls.”

First of all I loved acknowledgement, until I read author started to thank everyone, I felt like I was reading a story already. It was best acknowledgement I’ve read till now.
Catherine– The story about best-selling author, Nicholas Sieum, who has worked years on his romance novel, and starts living in his fictional world, falls in love with his protagonist, Catherine, and lose the ability to return to reality. This can be a total nightmare for author. This was very thrilling psychological story I was so engrossed in this story, I never wanted it to end. This was the best story in the book. It felt like lighter and shorter version of Jacob M. Appel’s psychological thriller.
Sidzy; for a day– This was very romantic story. Jihan, a husband celebrate a Women’s Day as ‘Sidzy (his wife) Day’. For one day he lives his wife’s life, did all chores his wife was doing every day and realizes how much his wife has done for him, and how difficult it is to be a woman. He makes his wife’s day with gifts and surprises and at the end he too gets surprise. I know it lead to think something terrible might happen at this point right? I also thought some shocking twist will come which kept me going. But no it’s very simple and sweet romantic story of husband and wife and their passionate love for each other. It was okay story, you find such kind of story happening in everyone’s life. But it reminds you of best person in your life. And gave a reaction like Sshhooooo Shhwweeet! 😉

Highway Man–  Rohan, who has lost his wife in car accident is mourning, he doesn’t know how to live or how to be strong for his son, Ayaan who also has lost smile on his face. A strange man asked for lift on highway when father and son was traveling. This unknown person makes them smile and brings life back into their lives. I loved the message behind this story. It was so beautiful. How smile or simple hello and compliment are can make someone’s day. And this story made my day. This was very touching story and reminds us that life is beautiful even though you have lost the person who made the life beautiful. Loved this one.

All 3 stories felt real. Every stories had something to tell to readers. Loved the narration in stories. They made me to think for a while after reading them. Not even in single story I felt there should me more in the story or smoothing was missing. All the emotions were captured in very few pages of this book.

Why 4? The only thing I didn’t like was blurb of this book. It made it look like a thriller stories but it’s not. Only the first one I will mark as a thriller. So, when I started reading stories it was not what I expected. So, if reader go by blurb they are more likely to be disappointed by book. Otherwise, all stories are really nice and I enjoyed reading them. If I have gone for this book blindly I would have given it 4.5 or 5 stars.
Overall, this was very quick read best break read. I would like to read more from this author.
Who should read it? I recommend it to all who love to read short stories.

Author: J. Alchem

About Author (Goodreads Bio): J. Alchem is a voracious reader and a critically acclaimed author. He is the winner of StoryMirror- 2015 (a nationwide writing competition), NaNoWriMo-2015 & 2016, and superhero storyteller (2014).
He has written in several magazines and newspapers and received the appreciation for the same. His stories have been published in numerous Anthologies such as Blank Space, Love Bytes and Mighty Thoughts.
He is actively involved in writing quotes and short write-ups which are often seen being circulated among the youth in Facebook, Whatsapp, and other Social networking sites.
Recently he has signed a contract for a short movie on one of his award-winning short stories.

What do you think about the story and my review? Share you thoughts in the comment-box below.
Happy Reading! 🙂

–BT&R