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Reviewed by Nino Lobiladze for Readers' Favorite
The Boatman by Annalisa Crawford is a collection of three short stories set in a small town in Cornwall. The Boatman, an old pub by the river, welcomes all kinds of visitors, maybe even otherworldly ones. Quinn, a troubled soul, desperately tries to blend into the background. She often comes to The Boatman and quietly sits there, pretending to read a book. One day, she notices the handsome Murray in the pub, and everything changes. Ella has been having the same dream over and over again since her childhood. It has a gloomy prediction that she refuses to take seriously, but the dream becomes too real to ignore. Rona left university and found a job at The Boatman. She needs to figure out the next step in her life despite the frightening gift that she possesses.
Annalisa Crawford's The Boatman has loneliness, thirst for life, and craving for love as connecting elements between The Traveller, Ella’s Story, and Our Beautiful Child. The prose is deeply emotional. The author describes a small town, skillfully creating its unique ambiance. This haunted town, where it often rains, lures Quinn into a trap. The darkest short story in the collection, The Traveler, has a shocking ending. In my favorite, Ella’s Story, the author asks whether it is a blind fate or the choices we make that may cause us to perish. The suspense increases gradually as the narrative unfolds, keeping us uncertain regarding the outcome. In Our Beautiful Child, the author compares the empathetic Rona to a fake psychic who makes money from other people's grief and loss. The characters are realistic and perfectly defined. Readers preferring short fiction, suspense, drama, horror, and psychological thrillers will appreciate this haunting anthology from a brilliant author.
