Lara A Marshall

Book-lover, occasional writer and t'internet addict

[laraamandamarsh]

Backstories by Simon Van Der Velde #BookReview

Check out my review of #Backstories by Simon Van Der Velde #BookReview @simonvdvwriter

Dreamers, singers, heroes and killers, they can dazzle with their talent or their unmitigated evil, yet inside themselves, they are as frail and desperate as the rest of us. But can you see them? Can you unravel the truth? These are people you know, but not as you know them. Peel back the mask and see. ‘Humanity shimmers at the heart of every tale…and it is this that resonates, long after each…

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The Untameable by Guillermo Arriga #BookReview #BlogBlast

Late evening review just in time for your last cuppa on "The Untameable" #BlogBlast by Guillermo Arriga #BookReview @quercusbooks @maclehosepress #Untameable

Goodfellas meets White Fang. A gripping coming of age thriller of vengeance and destiny set between Mexico City’s murderous 1960s underworld and the bleak tundras of Canada’s most remote province. By the BAFTA-winning screenwriter of Amores Perros. Yukon, Canada’s far north. A young man tracks a wolf through the wilderness. The one his grandfather warned him about: “Of all the wolves you will…

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The Cosy Little Cupcake Van by Annette Hannah #BlogTour #BookReview

My turn on The Cosy Little Cupcake Van #BlogTour by @AnnetteHannah! A book that is tasty enough to eat! 🧁 Also massive #HappyBirthday Annette!! 🎂

Camilla’s delicious cakes are the talk of her little village. If you need a perfectly iced mouthful of joy, Camilla ‘Cupcake’ is your woman. But after losing her mother, she finds her home and her business in jeopardy. She needs a little helping hand… Thankfully her friends are always there for her, and when she is given an old ice cream van, Camilla’s dream of a cupcake delivery service is…

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Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller #BookReview #BlogTour #PublicationDay

My turn today on the #UnsettledGround #BlogTour 🤩 So happy to review this amazing book on publication day! Congratulations @ClaireFuller2 ! @hannahksx @

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant? What would you do to get it back? Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for…

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Now & Then?

Now & Then?

When everything was new, & in its place Exactly; a perfect marriage of time & space: An ideal plan made real by no creator; Pristine forms; harmonious symbiosis Of dimensions; poles & the equator Linked by lat & long lines straitly; osmosis Didn't pilfer soul nor matter; the All Was One, not fractured, shot beyond recall.. But, everything now, of course, is chaos, out Of synch & joint? Everyone…

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C&I

C&I

When nothing can be said, we shouldn't try To spin out words, as little can accrue From fruitless, idle talk of me & you; Especially when this virtual you & I Is merely that, not true or false, nor real Beyond the phrase itself. I'd rather fly Than walk or run, but have to grope & feel And plod in darkness to your side, wherever You may be, & whenabouts, whatever.... But, yes, it suits quite…

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Ars Ego

The unrequited love of selfhood grows And nurtures nothing, shapes no concrete poems, Forms small hopes of spiritual awakening? L. A. Barron Len Barron [17/11/2019]

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Perhaps to be or not to be a weasel...

Perhaps to be or not to be a weasel…

If nothing's good or bad but thinking makes It so, it follows on for me I think, Therefore l am' implies I'm pretty good? Yet, others might infer this specious lie Is self-designed to smooth, if not defy, The warts & wrinkles ethics breeds in rude And ill-defined bad habits- mostly drink And words, more words than drink!- & all life's breaks.. But, no! I'm not Prince Hamlet or The Bard, Nor was…

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Marriage: The Lover to his Post-PostModern Coy Mistress

Marriage: The Lover to his Post-PostModern Coy Mistress

'My love, I love you far-too much for marriage... [Anon] I asked Her 'Will you marry me? She said I will; but one day by & bye, not now? Tomorrow, next month, next year, maybe? How We go, too quick or slow, makes soon or late? It's down to you & I, we/us, not Fate? OK!', I countered, 'But, a long time dead Are we? A vaster aeon unalive Before our birth, likewise ? We're crammed within An…

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Calligraphy, or The Self-Reflexive Art of Writing Finely

Calligraphy, or The Self-Reflexive Art of Writing Finely

Calligraphy's a vain pursuit, akin To sniffing one's own toxic, home-brewed farts! I mean, what should be merely plain & practical Breeds a stylish craft of futile arts And hideous pride in small & worthless, personal Deeds? The feckless grandeur shown within Italic, even Gothic lines, reflects The weakness such strong, caring hand protects! But, poets don't subscribe to myths like this! They…

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Queueing

The times of when we queued are dead & gone. To wait for bus or tube which never came, Or pile up at the bar in pre-App days, Was bliss, indeed! And such a crying shame It is, this here-& -now that thinks & says Sweet Progress, how I worship thee alone!' But, what else can we do? Shall we sit still And perish here, because we have no wings To fly? For centuries, nothing happened. Things Created…

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Watching Westerns with Ludwig Wittgenstein

Watching Westerns with Ludwig Wittgenstein

I should have liked to have known him, Wittgenstein, And gone to movies, certain they were crap, Insipid, B-feature fayre, non-thought provoking Westerns, gumshoe Noirs, or melodrama, Romance, musicals, the rest of all such pap! But, as the world is all that is the case, And he died when he did, not even joking Poems like this one- however fine!- Can resurrect him, meet us face-to-face, To…

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Wandering Thought

When nothing fits or seems quite as it ought To be; if what you saved for & then bought Turns out a fraud & fake; &, should no port Within the storm arrive on time, you're caught Upon the waves of self delusions, fraught With guilt & sadness, black despair, naught To cheer you, nor to help you home; when short Of friends likewise because you simply sought To thine ownself be true, not dumbed &…

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Seasonal Delusion

In summer, we fry In winter, we freeze In autumn, all withers & dies But, spring resurrects us, Nurtures, protects us, And Nature bursts forth & thrives' * Or, so it's said? In fact, our endless, not- Unnumbered days, so full of empty life, Belie a linear progress to a goal Of settled joy when all is change? The whole Thing creaks & stinks, winds down & up, pretends It is perpetual motion? All…

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Untitled Sonnet

Smiling through my tears as now I write.. A very-long, if little while it seems, We own an empty heaven full of hellish Fun & blissful pains; a sharpness born Of dull & blunt despair stands in for life; A cowardice bred of hope & optimistic Thought takes bed, becomes the second wife Of stupid bravery; safe & realistic Ways are trodden through the deathly, war-torn Fields to peaceful, poor,…

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Vita Negativa Naturaliter

The old, familiar, irresolvable riffs Pour out again: is that fucking glass Half full or empty, both or either, and Or even neither? Filling life with ifs And ans, the pots & pans of fun in hand Just rust, & new old wine goes off before It's tasted? Quibbling minds, we pimp & whore The truth, reduce the real & best to farce.. So, fill the glass, forget the past, the present As it may be! Any…

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Random Thoughts on Creatures

Random Thoughts on Creatures

In jest, we call them 'creatures of the night'. In truth, we've never seen them by the light Of broken day, unless the rat called Bernard Counts! Perhaps great hordes of badgers, foxes, Mice & Muntjac deer convene outside The staffroom door when we have gone away? Well, maybe not, in fact! Besides, it's dark Enough to make them quite invisible, stark Unexistent to our feeble eyes, Unused to…

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