Tunnel Islandby Bill GastonPublished by Thistledown PressReview by Brandon Fick$24.95 ISBN 9781771872683 Tunnel Island is a collection of linked stories set on a fictional island in British Columbia’s Salish Sea, a place both familiar and otherworldly, realistic and mystical. Bill Gaston is a sure and steady practitioner of the short story form, with seven previous collections and a heap of award nominations to his name. All of this comes across in his quirky rendering of Tunnel Island, a place “mostly forest” with “a few thousand people” and “a bit of everything,” including people “who looked like poets, islands unto themselves,” and “wild turkeys and peacocks, descendants of farm stock that had either escaped, been let go, or wandered away from dilapidated circumstances.” There are stories that I like more than others, but all eleven are animated by a creative slant on familiar scenarios: a brief romance, taking care of a dying loved one, spending time with a reclusive uncle, nervously preparing for a date, a group of disparate characters coming together for a unique Christmas dinner. Gaston’s stories work because of a subtle blending of tones that is difficult to achieve. The prose can appear relaxed and breezy, but that…