`It is the sharing that I miss so much...` This opening line to No. 128 in Alan Prichard`s finely wrought sonnet collection neatly summarises the dilemma of a widowed spouse. It captures the poet`s mindset as he seeks to diffuse his puzzlement and grief through these revelations of lost love, new-found hope and the consolations of faith. Besides Shakespeare, there are hints of Milton, Wordsworth and even Hopkins. The best sustained metaphor is perhaps that of Death the dentist in No.15, who `draws life`s tooth and leaves a yawning hole`. But there`s humour too, a love of landscape and travel abroad, a fondness for local `characters`, human and otherwise, and a sense that, in the author`s words, the happy days outnumber those of gloom. This is a wonderful collection, reflective, elegiac, philosophical and full of love.