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Fringes, Heartstrings and Lyrics by Jan Sikes, Rick Sikes And Sydney Klein

I recently read Fringes, Heartstrings and Lyrics and thought I would share my review of the collection because it was one I particularly enjoyed. 

About The Author

I’ve been an avid reader all my life. There’s nothing I love more than losing myself in a story.

Oddly enough, I had no ambition to be a writer. But I wound up in mid-life with a story that begged to be told. Not just any story, but a true story that rivalled any fiction creation. Through fictitious characters, the tale came to life in an intricately woven tale that encompasses four books. Not satisfied to stop with the books, I released music CDs of original music matching the time period of each story segment. In conclusion, to bring the story full circle, I published a book of poetry and art. I was done.

Wrong!

The story ideas keep coming, and I don’t intend to turn off the creative fountain. I have now written numerous short stories, a series of paranormal romances and a series of historical fiction.

I love all things metaphysical and often include those aspects in my stories.

I’m a dedicated fan of Texas music and grandmother of five beautiful souls. I reside in North Texas.

Book Summary

I very much enjoyed this collection of short stories, poems and lyrics. It was very well written, edited, and had numerous themes that I found interesting. This was my first time reading anything by Jan Sikes or by the other contributors, Rick Sikes and Sydney Klein. I was pleasantly surprised and the book exceeded my expectations.

Short Stories

There are numerous short stories in this collection and there are multiple themes explored. The post will be incredibly long if I dissect every short story and theme so I’ll only mention some that stood out to me. Some of the major themes were love, grief, sacrifice, agism, inequality and discrimination, resilience and more. Some of the stories were paranormal, fantasy, dystopian.

The first one that stood out to me was A Foreign World because of its themes of ageism (a number of other writings in this book also mention this topic). When I was in university, I took a lot of Sociology courses and one of the first topics we tackled was ageism. Unlike other forms of discrimination, ageism is rarely discussed or even acknowledged even though it affects a large group of the population. I don’t think I’ve read a story (short or otherwise) that explores ageism in a dystopian way so I was particularly impressed. And this is like the first story in the collection so I already knew I would love it.

A number of the stories are inspired by historical events and as a historian, of course they stood out to me. For example, The Wolf Story was inspired by the genocide and suffering of Native Americans when colonists first arrived. I’ll say this, history is hard because we have to accept brutal things that have happened as well as the possibility that they will happen again. Or that they are happening in the present. But shying away from those things doesn’t help anyone, it simply increases the possibility that the most heinous parts of history will be repeated.

Lyrics & Poems

One of the lyrics shared in the book that really stood out to me was from a song (not yet recorded) by Jan Sikes called Hunger. It genuinely broke my heart and reminded me of the importance of empathy. When you have nothing left, no money in your pocket for a meal, you’re stuck with no choice other than doing what you have to in order to survive. It’s easy for us to judge those actions but in the end if we were desperate enough perhaps we would have done the same.

In fact, a lot of the writing in the book reminds us of the importance of empathy and I loved that.

Included Writing

I loved that Jan Sikes included writing from her late husband Rick Sikes and granddaughter Sydney Klein. Clearly, it is a talented family and all three are/were very talented. I particularly enjoyed Sydney Klein’s poetry, I hope she considers writing her own collection at some point. I’d surely read it.

Overall