Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

Longing, revenge, fear, hope and, of course, love - Barbara Erskine's characters experience the full spectrum of emotions in this delightful collection of stories. Barbara Erskine is a born storyteller. Encounters brings together for the first time over forty tales to illustrate her extraordinary talent for capturing the spirit of a place and drawing us into the hearts and minds of her characters. Some are humorous, some thrilling, while others are unashamedly sentimental. Old fashioned love stories such as A Face in the Crowd follow ingenious ghost stories and in A Step Out of Time the past and present come together, drawing back the curtain that separates us from our ancestors. No one who has enjoved Barbara Erskine's bestselling novels - Lady of Hay , Kingdom of Shadows , Child of the Phoenix and Midnight is a Lonely Place - will be able to resist this captivating volume.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy, Historical, Romance

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

An historian by training, Barbara Erskine is the author of six bestselling novels that demonstrate her interest in both history and the supernatural, plus two collections of short stories. Her books have appeared in at least twenty different languages. She lives with her family in an ancient manor house near Colchester, and in a cottage near Hay-on-Wye.

Reviews

[Victoria Sigsworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the only edition I can find listed but I have read the republished one which is a purple paperback and published by HarperCollins. It seemed so full of promise but in the end it was a struggle to finish. I need to remember that these were written in the 70s and all of the women, are, rather weak and silly. I don't think I have read any books with women as such weak characters. Also Erskine wrote them all with the same interests, painting and horse riding with possibly no exceptions. Does this mean she knew nothing of any other hobbies such as tennis, dancing etc. The stories, with the exceptions of the ghost stories were all actually the same but different, woman meets man ,tries to keep man,goes back to man,even one who was violent towards her!
Most of these stories were set at the seaside so there is much description of this area in different seasons but much of this is the same. The one story which I really didn't follow because of the style of the writing was A Summer Full of Poppies. The one I enjoyed the most was the Christmas themed one,All This Childish Nonsense.
The stories also write about the women being perfectly prepared, after barely knowing a man, to go back to his house or flat with him and most of them being prepared to let them kiss them and more!
However the other aspect which made this book difficult to enjoy was the lack of proof reading! I was surprised that HarperCollins hadn't had it proof read! Generally where they should be an e ,some of these words had an a. One line in one book was completely unreadable! This really is very poor.
All in all I could have given this book 2 but decided that part of the problem was created by lack of proof reading and therefore gave it 3.
All in all not a particularly excellent read.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were very good others were so-so. They were written for women's magazines so are based on the man and women romance theme. They are bread and butter work for the author and not designed to be read in such a repeatitive manner which is possibly why I found some of them toe curling. Many reflect thae attitude of the time (late 70s early 80s)where the women is portrayed as being subservient or needing a man or to be married in order to feel fulfilled. Personally I prefer her carefully researched historical books where there is time to create more than a charicature of a person.

[Pauline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am sorry to say that most of these short stories show their age.
Barbara Erskine excels in her other worldly tales so the ghost stories stand out starkly against the more traditional love stories which seem to include sad passive women (mostly artists for some reason) who rely on men for their happiness. There are a lot of involvements with married or strange men and some awkward love triangles. The stories felt a bit samey which got boring so I could not finish the book.

[ChroniclesofTania · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got bored with the endless number of these old-fashioned romance stories and the too-good-to-be-realness of it all. Many of the stories were too similar and lacked colour. A few stood out as different and therefore more interesting and memorable...https://chroniclesoftania.wordpress.c...

[Jodie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book shows its age. The few supernatural stories are ok. The rest are basically boring and out of date romance - very dated and stereotyped.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of short stories but I do like this author, I found that she is very fond of some names which got repeated rather often which then seemed almost like another story with the same characters. One or two of the stories could almost have been extended to give a more full character and more depth

[Carrie Hetherington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Erskine is my favourite author, I have all her books and would highly recommend each and every one. You won't be able to put them down! There are characters from the past and present intertwined in a single story, grounded in historical fiction and they're always full of ghosts. Gripping.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, most of which are readable, but unremarkable. Two stood out for me - A Step Out of Time, which is the first story in the book and The Bath - A Summer Ghost Story, which I love the idea of.

[Sophie Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these short stories Barbara Erskine proves herself to be as surprising and unsettling as ever. A real short story queen!

[Kerie Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could only give this book a 3 as I don't like short stories ! I didn't know when I bought it
However .... I really did enjoy each one but I wished they'd been longer !!!!
Love the author anyway !

[Becky Boylett · Rating 3 out of 5]

there were stories in this i like very much, a step out of time is my favorite, the only thing i can say is, i would love it all the more if it were a 500 page job not just a few, as i got in to it it came to a sharp end. it doesnt matter how many short stories i read i will never really like them as much as a book i can spend hours with.

[Sharon Reeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really love Barbara Erskine, I have read all her books, and am always waiting for her new book to be released.

I liked these short stories, but I am not really a fan of short stories, I prefer to get lost in a full book, for that reason, I only gave 3 stars.

[Julie]

Again, I don't usually buy collections of short stories but these were terrific.

[Jenny Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you thank you brilliantly written

[Alys Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can you say, good book. Good narratives and well thought out characters and plot. Prefer the longer novels, but the collections of short stories are good to dip in and out of.