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The Halfway Cafe

The Halfway Cafe

by Ron Sherkin
Fiction - Fantasy - General
Kindle Edition
Reviewed on 10/23/2026
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Tanja Jurkovic for Readers' Favorite

The Halfway Café, written by Ron Sherkin, follows Richie, a laid-back bartender at a café somewhere in between different worlds in the universe. Richie suffers from a condition called T.M.D., or a temporal memory disorder, which he handles by telling stories from the guests that come through the café, as well as regular customers from all walks of life...and sometimes death, to his manager.
All the stories in this book have an underlining connection that might not be as obvious to the reader at the beginning; nevertheless, this approach to storytelling adds a touch of mystery to the whole reading experience. Stories that talk about lost queens, or beautiful individuals who are put on this planet for a reason, stories of past friendships, lust and greed as life companions, stories so diverse and yet so similar that you won't be able to put the book down until the very end, where excitement and surprises await.

Ron Sherkin, in his book The Halfway Café, tells these intriguing stories of different species and lost planets, different perspectives, and lives with such ease that he draws the reader inside a magnificent world and leads them on a strange journey, skillfully controlling the flow to bring the reader to where he/she needs to be towards the end. Halfway Café is a delight to read, and the journey that Ron Sherkin takes one on is exciting and unpredictable. It will add a touch of excitement in your daily life, and take you on a trip to distant worlds that one can only imagine visiting.

Carine Engelbrecht

In The Halfway Cafe by Ron Sherkin, Richie serves coffee and spins tales, under the gentle prompting of a supervisor. He suffers from memory loss and must reweave the threads of his own existence, while examining the tales of the cafe's patrons for clues. We meet a woman whose very presence acts as a psychic air freshener, a beautiful shape changing grifter with a Robin Hood complex, and a hapless young man caught up in a multi-dimensional game between two women. As the narrative meanders from weirdness to weirdness, Richie must solve the existential mystery to facilitate his own recovery. The style is free form and almost, but not quite, stream of consciousness.

I was drawn immediately by the title of The Halfway Cafe by Ron Sherkin, which promises tales as clues to cure the narrator or main figure's predicament of memory loss. Does it deliver? In a way, yes. Don't expect the polish of a well-curated anthology, but instead imagine yourself in the company of someone who just keeps talking, at times rambling on and on, but nevertheless leading you through entertaining twists and surprising insights - a fireside storyteller, as it were. The tales vary in subject matter. You will appreciate them more if you take for granted that life exists beyond planet Earth and also beyond the physical, but that even in worlds beyond ours, familiar tropes of crime, seduction and betrayal recur and repeat, sometimes in endless cycles. The stories are imaginative, but at the same time a little rough around the edges, making the reader experience variable. But there is potential and some parts are surprisingly well realized. Richie's initial feelings of confusion and bewilderment at his memory loss are well captured and the key scene of The Lessons of Lorelei is handled with well-nuanced sensitivity.