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Eric Halpenny is a seemingly normal engineer by day, but a fiction author by night. He hasn't quit his day job. His preferred subject matter concerns life, existence, choice, spirituality, God, science, philosophy, and the nature of reality—all in the guise of entertaining stories. He started writing novels at the age of eight, but waited to publish until thirty-eight. He is often inspired in the middle of the night or while driving home from work. He lives in Northern California with his wife and three children. He loves inspiring quotations, and one of his favorites is from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo: "To learn to read is to light a fire." He would love to know that his writing lit the fire of reading, introspection, and hope in others.
Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
Thread and Other Stories by Eric Halpenny is a compelling book featuring fascinating, thought-provoking and entertaining stories with well-crafted characters. In The Thread, the reader meets Yannick and Prudence, people who have suffered a lot of injustice and who live on very meager means. But a new challenge is thrown their way in the form of a young boy who has nowhere to go. They are in a fix, knowing that refusing to admit this kid into their world would be sending him into danger, but life would be better for the boy if they took him in. In this book are hidden gems of stories that will appeal to readers who love multiple genres. They are well-written, enticing, and gripping, stories that literally keep readers’ eyes glued to the pages.
The way the author describes the setting allows readers to feel as though they walked the same places with the characters and shared in their emotions, creating clear images in readers’ minds, from the dry, dusty roads leading to the shanty, to the dark, choking cloud, to social and religious settings that are very familiar to readers or that they can imagine without effort. It takes a lot of skill to craft short stories that are balanced and deft and Eric Halpenny has that skill. Thread and Other Stories features great treats that readers will carry along in their hearts, stories that explore family, love, faith, mystery, and what is fine and beautiful in humanity. It is interesting to note that these themes are so wonderfully knitted into the plots. The stories are loaded with realism; they transport the reader into the world of the characters to experience the intrigue, the mystery, and the threads of friendship, faith, and love. Thread and Other Stories is a wonderful collection for fans of short stories, intelligently conceived and masterfully executed.
