Hues Of Hope: Selected Poetry by Balroop Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Hues of Hope poetry collection was a pleasant surprise in a world that currently seems so full of doom and gloom for so many people. It is a salutary gathering together of one person’s poems, such that they reflect the many different tints and tones of the colours that life can throw at you throughout your own existence. And at all times Balroop Singh is able to link her words to a common theme, one of the hope to be found within one’s own heart. Despair and anguish become subdued and even defeated by the things she so ably describes and reminds us of.

It was hard to pick out my favourite poems from such a large number, but as I am particularly fond of verse that explores and celebrates anything about the natural world I will say that there are two that touched me: ‘Dawn Whispers’ and ‘Finding Peace’ had all of the gentle elements and words I was looking for. A couple of verses from each poem may help to explain that:

Dawn Whispers:
Until the sun starts its journey
And the day reminds us:
It’s the symphony of surroundings
That whispers life into us.

Finding Peace:
Shining in our own characters
Away from ear-shattering sounds,
We soar away from strife and animosity
Earthly identities seem insignificant.

I know that I’m not alone in finding the seemingly endless news, whether TV, radio or online, so full of sadness and futile desperation. And it was quite refreshing to find someone like Balroop Singh who is able to bring some hopefulness to everyone who reads her poems. There was a general direction in the way the poems were arranged, following from the expectations of youth through to the resignation of older age.

This collection is not to be missed. My only criticism would be that there is perhaps too much to take in such a single ‘wholesome meal’ because after reading about 25 plus poems, I thought, ‘OK! I’ve got the message!’ Such a dietary collection needs to be spread over a longer time. But maybe that’s just me?

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Hypochondriac Gambler, A tale of Hermes by Neil M. Campbell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book attempts to illustrate the ease with which the main protagonist, Kate, falls prey to her obsession with gambling. There are plenty of twists in the tale to intrigue you and a curious list of well-written characters throughout. She suffers a lot of pain that is explained away by her physician/therapist as imaginary since medical tests cannot confirm Kate’s suspicions that there are real causes, like tumours and so on. After reading the first few chapters of the slow start I began to consider the plot as contrived and slightly unbelievable when you are expected to accept that Kate is also a trained and experienced psychiatrist. However, I continued to read in the hope that the story would begin to feel more authentic.

The book is written with Kate’s chapters in the first person whilst all other chapters are written as a third person narrative, which always comes across to me as a kind of cheat that rarely seems to work. Kate’s chapters often felt self-obsessed and puerile, and not at all like the educated professional she was meant to be. Unfortunately, the frequent departure into the Hermetic worlds of Greek and Egyptian philosophy did nothing to confirm for me the idea that the story was not too pretentious to be believable after all.

There was a character called Ray Hopkins that never became a ‘real’ person in my imagination, even though all of the other characters were quite engaging and acceptable. The ending explanation about Kate’s hidden memory of her fiancé’s death was even more contrived for me; much in the same way that the many coincidences in the story were included in the rather tedious re-telling(s) of Kate’s situation was. Although the blurb describes the book as a Romance I’m not sure that many fans of that genre would agree or enjoy it. In addition, there were some editing issues that needed correcting.

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