A Storied Life: Tabitha review – a cosy yet pensive puzzler where the biggest challenge is getting someone else's story straight

The irony, that this clanking full-stop on the end our bereavement’s lengthy administrative aspect could so feasibly kill me, was not lost. That process, from the last beep of hospital machinery to the unhaggled exchange of French scrap metal, took 11 months, so it’s good that A Storied Life: Tabitha condenses its own house clearance to just a couple of hours. Posthumously asked by an elderly friend to give her cottage a tidy, you spend half your time in A Storied Life rummaging through her things in a kind of reverse Unpacking, selecting which bric-a-brac to throw away, which to keep, and which – with her blessings – to auction off for cash. The other half is spent taking inspiration from the objects you’ve kept to rewrite her water-damaged memoirs, a bittersweet series of word puzzles that still achieves a certain warmth – provided you can come to terms with the peculiar writing style. Read more