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Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes

Updated on September 5, 2015

Disclaimer

I purchased the Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes in order to create this article post. I was promised a full refund from the Online Book Club in exchange only for my writing a post on Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes. I was in no way obligated to write a positive or negative review of Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes.

Source

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.""Holding Fire" contains 10 short stories within the theme of the self-destructiveness of vengeance and hate. The stories were each carefully selected by a team of judges from nearly a thousand entries. The amazing stories in this book are completely exclusive to this book! You won't find them anywhere else.

— Scott Hughes

Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction by Scott Hughes is a 288 page ebook available in kindle format on Amazon. The book was published by the Online Book Club.org.

I decided to give this book a try after learning about how many talented writers contributed their own stories to this book. These authors include:

  • Maggie Stancu
  • Joy Meehan
  • Chris Chan
  • Isobel Sheene
  • Jessica Phillips
  • Tayah Reed
  • John Mallon
  • J.B. Rice
  • Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill
  • Julieanne Swiatczak

I really liked the idea that by getting this book I was helping to support these up-and-coming writers to make their dreams come true. It was interesting that these ten writers were selected from a pool of around a thousand authors based on their writing skills.

Review

As I wrote at the top "I purchased the Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes in order to create this article post. I was promised a full refund from the Online Book Club in exchange only for my writing a post on Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes. I was in no way obligated to write a positive or negative review of Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction Kindle Edition by Scott Hughes."

Running with Guilt by Maggie Stancu

Running with Guilt by Maggie Stancu is the first story in the book. It begins with a person checking to see if a man is dead by holding a mirror over his mouth. The person then goes to clean up the scene and return home. This story is broken up into sections by a heading with the date and time. The story goes into why the woman murdered the man and how, why, and who led her to it. The story ends in such a way that the reader can decide what happens to the woman next. I liked how the story left me with wondering what really happened because the narrator, the killer, is not unbiased so it leaves you wondering about what happened.

Dog Eats Dog by Joy Meehan

Dog Eats Dog by Joy Meehan is about a new employee who for the last six months has been the only employee not scared of the new manager. This author using wonderfully descriptive language that really allows the reader to picture the scene. For instance the manager is described in reference to her employees as: "People were daunted by the darkness of her aura and the wildness in her eyes".

Partway through the book switches from the employee's perspective to the manager's. This change of perspective proved to be enlightening as it helped to show the reader both sides of the story. It also provided the reasoning behind the title of the story. From that point on the story continues to switch between perspectives as the reader learns more about the different characters. I found the ending very satisfying and I liked how it was portrayed.

Death's Door by Chris Chan

Death's Door by Chris Chan is about a retired police officer who gets to investigate a murder. The book begins with the retired officer talking about his daily life and what is happening in present tense. The book gets interesting when the man's grandson's best friend learns that her father was murdered.

The grandfather, grandson, and the grandson's friend all move the murder scene where the grandfather and grandson figure out how the murder was committed. During this part I did feel that there were some unnecessary details like that the grandfather had to keep reminding the grandson to lower his voice because he speaks loudly. Honestly out of all the stories this one was my least favorite. there was just so much information given and a lot of it was repeated more than once or provided when it was not needed.

Vindictive by Isobel Sheene

Vindictive by Isobel Sheene is about a minor, Aliyah, who was raped by Aeron who is 17. The story is mostly about Aliyah's brother Jordan who found her after she was raped. Aliyah does not want to call the police or go to court so Jordan takes matters into his own hands. This story was rather short and it was broken up by small time skips. I found this story interesting and I would love to know what happens after Jordan blacked out.

The Unsuspecting Nature of Grief by Jessica Phillips

The Unsuspecting Nature of Grief by Jessica Phillips is about a woman who loses a family member because in her own words "because she was not there when he needed her". The imagery in this story is amazing the author truly set the scene with word's alone. The story get interesting when the woman goes to visit the murder in prison. This story is rather depressing the woman is easily manipulated by the murderer. I found myself disappointed with this story, I was hoping it would be about redemption.

Do Seconds even matter? by Tayah Reed

Do Seconds even matter? by Tayah Reed is about a young woman with a mentally ill mother. Her mother is suicidal and mentally unstable the girl avoids making friends because she does not want them to know about her mother. The story changes when she meets the boy who will become her boyfriend. The book has a very depressing note to it, but it has a redemption ending. Which is a nice change.

Life is a Great Teacher by John Mallon

Life is a Great Teacher by John Mallon is about a young couple, Brian and Rebecca, Rebecca's mother claims to have seen Brain smashing her brand new car. When the police arrived Brain took off running. While looking for Brian the police found a man who had OD'd dead. From this point on the book gets very interesting. I won't write any more about this story because I don't want to give a way the plot too much.

Burden of a Soldier by J.B. Rice

Burden of a Soldier by J.B. Rice take place during a time where Kings ruled. The royals are searching for an assassin who traveled through a village. A young boy is killed in an attempt to persuade the village to tell anything they know about the assassin. This story follows a villager who witnessed the murder, Thaddeus. Unlike many of the other stories that end with a revenge this one ended with a good decision Thaddeus decides not to become what the young boy who was killed would have hated him for. I have to say that this story is one of my favorite from this book. It was well written and it was not depressing.

Ghostwriter by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill

Ghostwriter by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill is about a man who hired a ghost writer to write a novella for him. However the writer changes her mind and refuses to send the man the novella. This simple situation quickly spirals out of control and ends with a murder. I found this story particularly interesting from a writer's perspective I can understand that the ghostwriter did not want to give the man the novella especially considering they had no contract. I really enjoyed reading about how the ghost writer got her revenge.

My Name is Finn by Julieanne Swiatczak

My Name is Finn by Julieanne Swiatczak is about a young person named Finn. Finn parent's made it quite clear that Finn was just an accident that was never meant to happen. This story is about the abuse that happens to Finn and how Finn escapes it sometimes. I found this story to be very sad. I even found myself crying at some point over the abuse of Finn. I found it very difficult to finish this story, but I did. This was a well written story and the author wrote it perfectly, but I still hated it for the abuse that was put on poor Finn.

Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction by Scott Hughes

Every single one of these ten short stories was well written. After each story there was one to two page on the author that wrote the story. I can not honestly say that I enjoyed all of these stories, but it was a different experience to read so many stories on the same theme from different writers. If I could change anything about these stories it would be that they would all have a happy ending. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys short stories and is interested in learning how anger can be harmful.

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