Click Here to Purchase From Amazon A Sublime Celestial Blessing

Author: A.G Bennett

Publisher: World Audience

ISBN: 978-1-934209-24-0

A.G Bennett was born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia in 1960. He had the pleasure of sailing up and down the east coast on a yacht which his father had built. Bennett finally settled down in northern New South Wales and in the schools he attended his talent for writing emerged. Later he attended the University of New England in Armidale where he completed a double major in English Literature and Modern History.

Later he came to Sydney where he worked in various jobs before taking up a job in the telecommunication industry and worked there for twenty years. He enjoyed his job but found he was much happier being a musician in his spare time. A self-taught guitarist, Bennett composed many songs and lyrics over the years but finally swapped his guitar for a pen and took up poetry.

Leaving telecommunication, Bennett returned to his love of literacy and went  from poetry writing to become a short story author, now smiling from ear to ear as his first book of short stories is published- a publication success indeed!

This book is a collection of short stories, ranging from crime to the supernatural. Bennett tells these stories with a poetic flare, creating mysterious characters and capturing the spirit of men and women.

It’s very difficult for me to have personal favourites in this compilation, because each story is slightly different and equally as good  but I rather liked the opening tale A Sublime, Celestial Blessing. We follow Terry Fitzbibbon, a struggling newspaper reporter, who ends up with reporting the minor events that none of the other journalists want. So when he is asked to do a report on a local woman who has won the paper’s winter football tipping competition, it comes as no surprise. However upon meeting his subject Terry instantly notices how strangely attractive the woman is and how odd her young daughter behaves around him. When the lady shares her sympathy with Terry for the passing of his father, he feels the hairs prick on the back of his neck. How could this be possible? His father is still alive. After sinister events occur Terry cannot help but be captured by this woman’s weird predictions for the future. A very atmospheric tale .

Another favourite is ‘Til Death Us Do Part. A tale of a husband and wife who try to kill each other in order to receive the insurance money they recently took out on themselves in case one were to die. Sam, the husband, had tried to bump off his wife by disconnecting the brakes on her car in the hope she’d have an accident. He also put rat poison in his wife’s meal but neither of these tricks worked. His wife, Jean, was always too clever to be fooled and saw through her husbands schemes.

Jean too tried to get rid of Sam and many times this too often failed.

I don’t know if Bennett intended this story to be amusing or just a menacing murder read, but it actually made me laugh at times. I thought parts in this were filled with dark humour and wit. Another good story.

Throughout nearly all these short stories, I felt a deep foreboding sensation. Characters spring to life throughout the pages and remind us that death is a certainty.

Bennett has certainly a good career ahead of himself in the writing business. This is a book that should satisfy all of those who like crime, the supernatural, murder and humour told in a mesmerizing and at times, very creepy way.

The above review was contributed by:  Jessica Roberts: Jessica has been a book reviewer for a newspaper and a national women's magazine and is working on a novel. To read more of Jessica's reviews CLICK HERE