R J Askew

A love triangle with a difference.

In the Room with Three Doors

My review -

This is a different view of the love triangle, but having read some of Mr Askew’s earlier work, I know his take is always rather different. Three young people, two men and a woman, in, as Rhi the girl calls it, a room with three doors, opening inward. Rhi is the survivor of twins, her sister having been killed in a road accident. Her determination is to live and to love for both of them. She is something of a mystic. I’ve read a few books now – a very few – in which a character in a story perceives himself or herself to be just that. The creation of someone else. “She stares out from the story of her life.” It’s an intriguing idea – not unlike The Matrix – making the reader wonder what is real. If you enjoy a novella length read and want something the likes of which you’ll not have read before, this is the one. An intriguing book.

R J Askew

Ron Askew has a background in journalism and is obviously a man who loves words.  So do I and I love his work!

Watching Swifts

Amazon.com  Watching Swifts

My review -

This book tells the story of a relationship which takes place over a few summer months. A woman who is a war photographer meets a man selling ice-cream in Kew Gardens and he starts to draw her. Over the months she returns and he continues. As he draws, he talks, initially about the swifts he constantly watches. Most of the book is his words and a scattering of poems as his own life story comes out. He also tell us about some of the other workers and some of the visitors.

If you love creative language you will warm to this book very quickly. Tom, known to his fellow workers as Leonardo because of his drawings, gradually lets his own story come through and we see how he has coped with a life full of problems. He has become a rounded person unlike some of those he tells us about. The gardener, Parker, an angry and dissatisfied person, finds an equilibrium in a surprising manner.

There are real depths to ponder here; redemption after disastrous failings; the difference between 'real' and 'perfect' love, for example. It is a book that will stay with me and I loved reading it. It's one of those you don't want to finish.