B.G. Hilton

Three words immediately come to mind when closing the last page on BG Hilton’s Mysterious Aisles. Chaotic, cluttered, and creative. Overflowing with multiple characters and plotlines the reader must be truly invested to persist until the end.

Looking at it from a physics perspective will make it clearer. Think Dr Who and his quote ‘Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey’ and that helps immensely. There is nothing in Hilton’s book that isn’t ‘Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey’. The only thing that is recognisable is the setting of the Supercentre and Handy Pavilion.

Many cities have supercentre hubs where everything for the home is offered in a variety of outlets. There is no doubt, however, that the crowning jewel in any of these centres is the big box hardware store. Hilton has provided a plethora of characters to staff the Handy Pavilion Hardware, some with two personas. Keeping up with them all may not be a problem for some readers, but there is a character list at the back of the novel if you’re struggling. When exploring the characters, there is an absurdity about them that makes for humour between Monty Python and Little Britain.

If this wasn’t enough, try coming to grips with the overabundance of plot lines for the many characters involved in the story. It seemed there were plots within plots, within plots. Fortunately, all of these did relate to the overarching goal of removing the new player in the supercentre, the DIY Barn. It was a tragedy of errors for all involved at the Handy Pavilion.

The saying of ‘couldn’t organise a bun fight in a bakery’ comes to mind. Eventually, the fractured plots all came together into one major plot line. This was very satisfying considering the many times I muttered “doing my head in”, but I’m glad I persisted. I really wanted to see what happened at the end.

If you like a range of characters including ghosts, cyborgs, superheroes, gnomes, monkey men, Gods, empowered women, and masculine cowboys this is a book for you. I do love a good hardware with a snag on bread, however, when I get to the garden section now, I will be giving every gnome a serious side eye. I have three at home on my front porch and all have been chained to the railing since reading Mysterious Aisles.

Hilton has left Mysterious Aisles hanging indicating a second book is coming. Until that time the chains stay on my garden gnomes, and they are under strict surveillance from the cockatoo.… (mer)

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There was a lot of fun in this. The cast of characters is pretty wacky and there are some fun exchanges. While it leans heavily on quite a number of tropes, as a story it’s very self-aware and ramps up the camp rather than getting too caught up in taking itself seriously.

With that said, it was a very ambitious story. There were a lot of characters, each with their own subplots, which felt a little frenetic. While most of these subplots were resolved, others weren’t and I reached the end of the story wondering what conclusion I was meant to have reached.

There’s some cracking dialogue and descriptions in here, but it felt unfocused. With that said, I would definitely read more of BH Hilton’s work in the future, as there’s a lot of promise.… (mer)