Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Memoir
Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words
Availability
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on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
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Author:
“Shawn Inmon is originally from Mossyrock, Washington, the setting for his first book, Feels Like the First Time. He has been a real estate broker in Enumclaw, Washington for the last twenty years. Prior to that, he worked as a short-order cook, traveling T-shirt salesman, radio DJ, Cutco Cutlery sales rep, department store buyer, video store manager, crab fisherman, Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman, business consultant and public speaker. He is married to his high school sweetheart Dawn and has five daughters, five grandchildren and two chocolate labs named Hershey and Sadie.”
For more, visit Inmon’s blog.
Description:
“September, 1975: Shawn meets Dawn, his one true love, when she moves into the vacant house next door. Many people spend their lives searching in vain for happiness, but he was lucky, finding it at the age of fifteen.
February, 1979: Forbidden to see each other and feeling he is harming her by being in her life, he walks away from the love of his life, apparently forever.
December, 2006: After decades of sadness and mourning the girl that got away, he has a chance meeting with her that might change his life forever… again. Can the sweet bond of first love not only survive, but flourish?
Feels Like the First Time lets you share in the magic of young love in small town America in the 1970s. No matter how much the world changes, some things – timeless music, high school dances, making out in the backseat of a Chevy Vega, and of course true love – will always remain the same.”
Appraisal:
Any romance
novelist out there who is suffering from writers block has a ready-made plot
begging to be stolen in Feels Like the
First Time. Although you’ll have to rework it a bit to fit genre conventions
(specifically, add the female’s point-of-view), the plot would work great. For
women who don’t think men are romantic, Shawn Inmon’s “true life love story”
will prove that isn’t true. If nothing else, he’s the exception that proves the
rule.
As much as
I liked the love story, I also found the nostalgia in the first part of the
story almost as much of a draw. Inmon’s a couple years younger than I am and
the first part of his story, during his high school and college days in the
mid-seventies, brought back memories, both good and bad. For example, the title
of the book seems like an obvious (maybe even clichéd, albeit appropriate)
title. But when I considered all the references to music from that era, the
book title (as well as a chapter title of the same name) is obviously an homage
to the hit song from Foreigner’s first (and still best) album, which makes it
more than okay. I wouldn’t want to return to the days of silk shirts, bell
bottom pants, and getting tongue-tied around beautiful woman (actually, I’m
still waiting to grow out of the last one), but the brief visit was fun.
Although it
reads much like a novel, with the same structure (plot, story arc, etc.),
Inmon’s writing style never left a doubt that the story was real. I kept
thinking about that old writing saw about opening a vein and was constantly
looking for red splatters on my Kindle.
Format/Typo Issues:
No
significant issues
Rating: **** Four stars
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