Book Review: Let Your Lips Twitch by R.A. Clarke

I am pleased to be welcoming R.A. Clarke to Novel Kicks today and the blog tour for her collection of short stories, Let Your Lips Twitch.

Comedy is everywhere if you allow yourself to see it—to feel it. It can be subtle or overt, dark or joyous, adorable or cheeky. Such ageless versatility is beyond compare. Curated with that in mind, author R.A. Clarke proudly presents sixteen humorous stories to the world.

Between these covers, you’ll find short fiction in several genres. Each tale is infused with unique characters and comical situations, some rooted in reality, others certainly not. Flip the page and join a jewel heist executed by bumbling thieves at a gastronomy party, meet a lowly soul gifted the fantastical chance to redo an all-consuming moment of regret, or sweat alongside a father as he realizes his daughter is growing up too fast. Turn another page and you’ll enjoy clowning around while meeting Mr. Right, then zoom in on a perfectly focused meet cute, or feel Mother Nature’s wrath as a rebellious fishing excursion goes all kinds of wrong. There is something in this collection for everyone to enjoy, including eight never-before-seen stories.

Allow yourself to be entertained and whisked away. Let humour in all its glorious forms tempt your lips to move. Don’t fight the urge. Embrace it. Go ahead and let your lips twitch.

*****

Let Your Lips Twitch is sixteen short stories and as I had not read anything by R.A. Clarke before, I didn’t know what to expect.

What happened is that I raced through these stories. Some I liked more than others but each one was different and interesting and for me, there were many moments where I laughed out loud.

There is something to suit a variety of readers and what I like is that you can read them in order, it’s not a long read at two hundred pages long, but you can also dip in and out if you just wanted to fill a couple of minutes.

I found For King and Cookies particularly sweet. Mr Regret and Clicking were also amongst my favourites. As with some others in the collection, stories like Red Nose and a Party Dress is one I would love to see extended into a longer story. I want to know what happens.

This is a brilliant, fun short story collection. I wanted more stories. This would be a great holiday companion or a great book to have by the bed for picking up when you want something quick to read.

I loved it.

About R.A. Clarke –

R.A. Clarke is a former police officer turned stay-at-home mom from Portage la Prairie, MB. She shares life with a sport-aholic husband, two adorable children, and an ever-expanding collection of novels-in-progress.

Besides sipping coffee and escaping to the lake, R.A. enjoys plotting multi-genre short fiction, and also writes/illustrates children’s chapter books as Rachael Clarke. She has won international short story competitions such as The Writer’s Games, Writer’s Weekly, and Red Penguin Books humour contest.

In 2021, she was named a Hindi’s Libraries Females of Fiction finalist, a Dark Sire Award finalist, and a Futurescapes Award finalist. R.A.’s work has been published by a variety of publications, including Sinister Smile Press, Cloaked Press LLC, and Polar Borealis Magazine, among others.

Say hello to R.A. Clarke via her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to view Let Your Lips Twitch on Goodreads. 

Click to purchase on Amazon UK, Waterstones, Amazon Canada and Amazon US.

by

Laura

I'm Laura. I started Novel Kicks back in 2009 as I wanted a place to discuss books and writing - two loves of my life. As someone who has anxiety, these two things give me, and I am sure countless others, a much needed escape.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.