Genre:
Short Story Collection
Description:
“Tempting
little wrongs, moral dilemmas, subconscious desires. Blinded by
self-deception, even the best of us are led astray. In these 14
stories, you'll encounter familiar misdemeanants from every walk of
life and their unwitting—or complicit—victims.”
Author:
“V.S.
Kemanis is a California native and currently resides in New York. As
an attorney, she has been a criminal prosecutor for county and state
agencies, argued criminal appeals for the prosecution and defense,
conducted complex civil litigation, and worked for state appellate
courts.”
Kemanis
also has three short story collections available and is working on
the second novel in her Dana
Hargrove legal mystery
series.
For more, visit her website.
Appraisal:
This is a
collection of slice-of-life stories, each with a character who has a
flaw, often exacerbated by a dose of self-delusion. With the
exception of that flaw, they could be just like us. (Or maybe they
are just like us and we don’t want to admit it.) Each is well told,
with interesting characters, which might go without saying since it
is usually the imperfections that make a character unique.
A few of
the stories stood out, each for different reasons. Cat,
for the twist ending that snuck up on me. Where
I Am stood out because it is
much different from the other stories in setting and genre, although
that reality was slow in penetrating my consciousness. Last, A
Simple Case, because it
features Dana Hargrove, the protagonist in Kemanis’ novel
Thursday’s List,
which I had previously read. This story takes place prior to the
novel. Dana learns some lessons that will be beneficial for her
future.
FYI:
Added for Reprise Review:
Malocclusion
was a nominee in the Short Story Collections and Anthologies category
for B&P 2014 Readers' Choice Awards. Original review ran October
31, 2013
Format/Typo
Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 60-65,000 words
No comments:
Post a Comment