This endearing collection of 25 short stories from the pen of award-winning Scottish writer Janet Walkinshaw is a book to dip into time and again.   Long-Road-to-Iona---coverWith a wry sense of humour, Walkinshaw – whose work has been broadcast on BBC Radio Four – has created a cast of characters that will stick in readers’ minds.   She writes with a pleasing sense of the absurdity of day-to-day life and has a way of capturing the pleasures and disappointments of lives, whether lived fully to the last or cut sadly short.   Many of the stories also have an ironic or dark twist in the tale. It wouldn’t be right to spoil the surprises but be careful with little old ladies, tourist guides and straight-laced lawyers as they may not be what they seem.   Common themes in the book are those of travel, escape and disguise. Characters in the book frequently yearn to travel, to run away, or to simply shrug off their identities and begin again elsewhere.   Unrequited love and unresolved yearnings are also recurring threads. The story ‘Fergus in Love’, for example, introduces us to a character who has long carried an undeclared torch for a female friend.   In some of the stories, the tender feelings are mutual; in others they are clearly one-sided, and in others - such as ‘Miss Bell and Miss Heaton’ - the nature of the characters’ feelings is kept more ambiguous.   Among the longer stories, a standout is ‘I’ll Settle For Arran’, in which a woman’s travel plans are frequently thwarted by those around who don’t share her sense of adventure. There’s a sharp sting of pathos to this and many of Janet’s stories, but also a healthy dose of humour.   Each of the stories in the collection, brought together for the first time, has its own merits, but to this reviewer, major standouts include ‘Fergus and the Cost of Living’, in which the protagonist seeks a feeling of camaraderie and belonging among people of no fixed abode; ‘Waiting for a Death’ - a ‘sting-in-the-tale’ story of a duplicitous lawyer who bends the rules to be a ‘good friend’; and the title story ‘Long Road to Iona’, a longer, more complex tale in which a widowed woman finds herself written off by younger family members who move her from her beloved country farm to a “grotty flat up in the air”. She then begins to walk, and carry on walking, casting off responsibilities and even her own identity as she goes.   Like many of the stories in this book, the tale which lends the collection its title celebrates the freedom that comes from letting go of the weight of other people’s assumptions, the tedium of day-to-day duties and the embracing of the open road.   At times funny, frequently poignant and very often thought-provoking, Long Road to Iona & Other Stories is a literary path to follow.   Long Road to Iona and Other Stories by Janet Walkinshaw is available now, priced £6.99 in paperback.