Friday, July 28, 2017

Review: Love and Crime: Stories by V.S. Kemanis

Genre: Short Story Collection

Description:

“Loves big and small, crimes forgiven or avenged. These are the themes that drive the eleven diverse stories in this new collection of psychological suspense from storyteller V.S. Kemanis.”

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, and conducted complex civil litigation. Ms. Kemanis is also an accomplished dancer and has performed, taught and choreographed in California, Colorado, and New York.”

For more, visit her website.

Appraisal:

This short story collection is broken into four sections. Love stories, crime stories, love and crime reprise, and what the author calls epiblog. The first two sections are the majority of the content with the theme of each apparent. The love and crime reprise section contains three stories from previously released collections that fit with the first two sections. However, a note just before the first story resets expectations a touch.

These stories are about love and crime, but… reader beware. You may find love in the crime stories and crime in the love stories.

I’m guessing there is no need to say that these stories might not fit neatly into whatever pattern you normally picture for a love or crime story. Some, starting with the first, struck me as strange. But on balance most, strange or not, were solid, entertaining reads.

The epiblog section, the final and shortest of the four sections, has a few brief pieces that were originally blog posts, either on the author’s blog or a guest post elsewhere. They aren’t fiction, but I found them interesting and thought they gave some interesting context to the author’s writing, not only the stories in this book, but her other books as well.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

2 comments:

VS Kemanis said...

Al, Thank you for reading and reviewing Love and Crime and for your continued support of indies. Best regards, V.S.

BooksAndPals said...

You're welcome, V.S. Thanks for dropping in.