Matt Shaw

Short story summed up, a married woman is arriving to an Air B&B to meet up with her married lover. She gets there before him and as she is setting up the landline rings. She answers it thinking it's the guy she's supposed to be meeting. They have been hooking up for a couple of years, with no intentions of leaving their other spouces. Just some fun.

The person who is on the line is not her lover, but someone else who has been watching and judging her for her actions. This book is a "one shot" in a single Air B&B and is a cat & mouse over the phone.

Quick in-between books read. If you have an hour to kill or want to read something quick, this is a good one. Be warned, this is Matt Shaw, so you can expect all manner of fuckeduppery.

In the end, it's just a book.… (more)

This is a two part novella which actually contains two distinctly different stories set in the same universe with one or two of the same characters.
The Suicide Club:
People who decided to commit suicide discover (and I can't remember how) a "club" that offers them the ability to kill themselves in such a way that their loved ones don't feel bad about them dying. The only catch is that they must wait a year before the suicide happens, and they must attend a weekly "support group". When they decided to join this "club" they are tattooed with a dead-head moth and proceed to live their life for the next year knowing that they have a day to look forward to as being their last day on earth.

The first story is about one of the members of the club and his personal experiences with it as well as his discovery of what it all means. The character who is the face of the club, the one who facilitates the joining, and the one who runs the group is the character who we follow into the next novella which is directly after this one.
Skeletons ΓÇ£The Sequel to the Suicide ClubΓÇ¥
A group of arrivals to London find out they must go directly to a Covid quarantine hotel, this story is about those people. Each person is given a bit of backstory and screentime so that we learn enough about them to know what they are about. If you have read the book "How Much To" you know what kind of character descriptions Matt uses in this style. Basically we get the God's view of a group of people.

I liked this one because Matt broke the 4th wall enough that I learned about the fact that he has a website that allows people to purchased various book related items, and the ability to occasionally purchase a part in one of his novellas. You can also purchase a personally written short story or novella just for you. Also, I discovered Matt's views on the Johnny Depp/Amber Herd situation (which I agree with)
We learn this when we "read" what the characters are reading while on that bus going to the Covid Hotel.

The two stories are intertwined by the character who is the facilitator of the "Suicide Club", as he is present in both stories as the same character.

Matt give a bit of an explanation on why he put both books into this one and just marketed it as one book at the end.… (more)