AmeriCymru was delighted recently, to be given the chance to review a range of titles from one of Wales smaller independent publishers - Cinnamon Press. The four titles reviewed below will be available along with many others from our booths at NAFOW , Left Coast Eisteddfod and Wordstock . We should also point out that there is still one week to go in our competition to win a copy of Harrison Solow's critically acclaimed 'Felicity And Barbara Pym' ( also published by Cinnamon Press. ) For a review and competition details please follow this link:- Felicity And Barbara Pym - Harrison Solow. Review & Competition.

Yeah, Dai Dando

Dai Dando hails from Pontypridd and works for a building society in Cardiff. Beer, rugby and a series of amorous adventures more than adequately occupy his leisure time. Until one night after offering his sofa to a late night drunk, who missed his last bus home, life starts to take a more reflective turn. Simultaneously his most recent affair degenerates into a Brian Rix farce, albeit without the polka dot boxer shorts. These events inspire the protagonist to a confused but none the less heartfelt and poignant reflection on the nature of life in modern Wales and upon the vexed question of Welsh identity. A hugely entertaining but surprisingly subtle and profound work from Welsh author and literary journalist, Meic Stephens .

Up Close

Shelagh Weeks' portrait of the collapse and rebuilding of a family very well captures the mutations of real human relationships: parent and child, husband and wife, brothers and sisters. Her characters' experience hum with recognizable authentic history and emotion. Here is the pang of loss as things change and pass away, the hope of new opportunity and future, bitter acceptance of disappointment, things we all know intimately in our own lives and our own families. Her characters are well drawn, their motivations sympathetic and her prose gently illustrates their story.

Up Close follows a family with three young children on holiday as the parents' marriage collapses. Years later, they are reunited at a family christmas get together, in South Wales and find resolution of some difficulties and new ways to confront others.

The Schoolboy

Holly Howit t is a writer of microfictions, novellas and novels, as well as non-fiction and academic pieces. The Schoolboy has been selected for the Aur Pur/Pure Gold library promotion She recently read at the Hay Festival as part of an event based around coming of age novels. Also on the panel were Stephen May, author of Tag (Cinnamon Press), and Elaine Walker, author of The Horses (Cinnamon Press). All three titles will be available at the AmeriCymru booths at NAFOW, the Left Coast Eisteddfod and Wordstock. This is a challenging book. The central character is a 16 year old sociopath whose prurient obsessions and horrific acts of violence are conveniently masked by his rather tenuous grip on reality. Whilst he is certainly not a likeable character one cannot altogether avoid empathising with him . This fact is a tribute to the extraordinary quality of Holly Howitt's writing and the main , rather unsettling, appeal of this work.

The Fugitive Three

Mike Jenkins is a bard of the South Wales working class. He is a former editor of Poetry Wales and a long-term coeditor of Red Poets' He taught English at Radyr Comprehensive School in Cardiff for nearly a decade. He lives in Merthyr Tydfil and has done for 30 years. AmeriCymru is especially grateful to him for his contribution to this site entitled 'The Journey of The Taf' which can be found here:- http://americymru.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-journey-of-the-taf

Impress Review : - "Sharp, funny, fast paced and precisely executed, The Fugitive Three is a dazzling display of dialect, plot and characters who, despite their flaws, are completely believable and eminently likeable."

Cinnamon Press is a small, independent publisher based in Wales & publishing the best new poetry and fiction with occassional non fiction and cross-genre titles. Books come from Wales, the UK and the world. We run writing competitions twice a year to find new voices in poetry and fiction with three categories (novel/novella; poetry; short stories) - each category has a cash prize plus publication. You can find our excellent list of titles at www.cinnamonpress.com "