Often falling in love against their better judgment, the players find that life’s complexities can’t unfortunately be brushed away and that the giddiness and euphoria love can deliver can sometimes be brutally erased by routine everyday events.
In the story “Second Chance Sister,” for example, young Ashley Edmundson falls in love with the charismatic Brandon Olsen who shows plenty of promise as a law student. Going against the wishes of her mother who would like Ashley to settle down with someone more stable, the daughter is unfortunately dealt an unlucky hand when love quickly turns sour and life’s harsh realities set up shop. The stories are marginally connected, mostly by overarching themes and circumstances. While McCoy largely succeeds in delivering on his assumed premise: that love is an unpredictable and volatile force of nature, these stories unfortunately fall short of moving much beyond these narrowly defined parameters. Plot devices which are meant to be clever — the story, “Prisoner of the Heart,” for example, switches between first and third-person narration featuring the same protagonist — turn out to be merely confusing. Quite a few of the stories have a central moral compass oftentimes quite transparently, as in a mother who knows what’s right — or at least thinks she does — for her child. Yet their purpose is often muddied and the impact on the plotlines, unclear.
McCoy shows promise but his stories could use some tightness and clarity of focus. The best one in the collection, “Remembrance of Times Gone,” where an ex-convict is trying to erase his past in a new town, gives us a sneak peek at the author’s potential.
These entertaining but also mildly frustrating stories read much like their characters: loose-footed and airheaded in the first blush of love.
~ IndieReader.