There are currently six episodes, the first three of which I’ve read for this review. (If you’re new to this blog, that’s what I do: I read Kindle Vella’s free one-two-three, then I write a review. If I really dig it, I pay the tokens to keep reading, just like everyone else.) I love the first paragraph. Right off the bat, we get the humility and confusion of the protagonist, Scarlet Collins. She seems younger than she really is—we learn her actual age in the third episode. She might even be a virgin. If not technically so, there’s definitely a virginal essence to her. There is so much she has never tried. She calls herself an introverted homebody. It’s her nature, yet she worries about the pending fate of a scorned cat lady. She’s fixated on this one experience she had dating the handsome, devil-may-care, ace-at-the-pool-table Jack Asher—firefighter by day, barfly by night. She has one friend (Gina) who is her opposite in every way—an extroverted ‘nightlife-body,’ let’s say. Gina convinces her to crawl out of her comfort zone and hang out at the neighborhood bar. The characters are intriguing. I especially appreciate that the author has made them working class. Their jobs are the epitome of hard work. It’s too often the case that romance authors give their characters lofty lifestyles that are more fantastical than realistic for many people. (I understand that fantasy is often the goal of the romance writer, but it’s also nice to have stories about more humble folk.) Yet it’s a little bit uncomfortable since we know from the beginning that Scarlet’s relationship with Jack is ill-fated. This story is “what I’ve gone through,” as it says in the first paragraph. From the words, “I need to tell it to someone,” the reader feels like a therapist looking for the red flags; or we feel like maybe something tragic has happened to the object of her love. The reader is also left in some doubt as to whether the Scarlet who recounts the story has managed to find any sense of peace. Her tone in retrospect holds regret, or disappointment, or something else I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s the tone of someone grappling with the loss of something, or someone, precious. From her worries about Jack’s job on their first date, there is reason to suspect the worst. Whatever the ending has in store, this is her story, about her and Jack, and her survival of whatever happened.
4.5 Stars: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BPQ5M9HX