The Havoc Tree– my first invited review for an Indie author

Author – Layden Robinson

Publisher – Amazon

Date – 2017

Length – 45 pages

Stars – 4/5 (towards the end, 3/5 for the first few stories)

Blurb

“Words, thoughts and manic rantings under the influence of strong drink and fine smoky treats.”

Review

When Layden Robinson contacted me on Twitter to read and review his book, I was really excited.  I started this blog in order to read work by indie authors or those who I have never heard of before.  My reason being that I am getting a little fed up with the usual stuff that appears on the ‘Recommended for you’ section.  For instance, I am currently reading a Dean Koontz novel which I expected to be great however, no matter how well-written it is, it just lacks the punch or intrigue that I was hoping for.  Once an author has been established, it seems they can get away with producing any old rubbish as people will buy it purely because of a flashy cover and the name (I am just as guilty as the next person).

Now, when I asked Layden what kind of genre ‘The Havoc Tree’ would fall into, he never answered.  I now understand why as there isn’t really a genre that can describe this work.  It is a compilation of 10 short stories, which read, to me, more like soliloquies.  They are all very dark and macabre with themes of violence, sadism and some well-written sexual content.  I won’t lie that I found this a little hard going and couldn’t quite make out a plot in the first few stories but I will admit to being somewhat of a philistine and not being totally familiar with this type of literature.  I see there are only good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads so I must be missing something.

The blurb speaks for itself and captures my thoughts of this book upon immediate reading. The cover is excellent and lets you know what kind of themes to expect in the book.

What I liked especially

My favourite story was ‘Assassination of a Caring Man’.  This flowed really well and I think had some deeper metaphorical meaning (be it intended or not).  A man who handcuffed himself to his lover is followed by people in white robes who eventually catch up with the couple and I will let you read the rest.  I think this was well-written and quite dramatic in parts.  I could really feel the main characters anxiety and I felt like the handcuffs were a great visualisation of hand-holding which can sometimes be defensive and protective.  There is an element of romance in this story too which I think was adequately developed.

“The Shoes” is another great story. A man finds a dead body and, instead of the normal response of calling the police, he is enamoured with his shoes and takes them for himself. When he wears the shoes, they turn him into a different person and he ends up brutally murdering his barber. He realises it is the shoes to blame but when he tries to get them off, they won’t budge. In a desperate attempt to get back to normality, he is left with no other option than to have his feet sawn off. I concept of this story is brilliant. Haven’t we all gotten swept up into things that we never meant to do and getting out of them is exceedingly difficult?

What I didn’t like

Reviews will always be fair and honest and I do have some bugbears about this book.  On the whole it is well-written but there is a fair share of typos.  The story about ‘Mr Sacorp’ made no sense to me and it felt like they were just words on a page (many of the words made-up: ‘porp’ and ‘scorp’).  He is also described to have a Scandinavian accent but then is reported to have grown up in Luxembourg (of course not in Scandinavia).  A little more background to explain the character may have helped rectify this (the book is only 45 pages so is a little brief).  I’m also a stickler for words and phrases that don’t make grammatical or etymological sense.  In ‘The Shoes’, the protagonist goes for a ‘hair manicure’ and this is mentioned several times.  The word manicure, of course, derives from the Latin manibus meaning ‘hand’ so trying to commandeer it in reference to a haircut is rather obscure.

All in all, if you fancy reading something that is entirely different to your usual literature, give The Havoc Tree a go.  I wouldn’t have read it if I hadn’t been signposted to it and, on balance, I probably wouldn’t read it again but I think there were some great elements to it. Thanks for asking me to read this Layden, I have enjoyed it.