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KEEP YOUR OPTIONS OPEN OR HOBSON’S CHOICE?
Are you offering to trade yourself in a partner market to obtain maximum appreciated value? The fiction novel Short of Love describes a new mind set for traders to avoid pitfalls in a romance.
Tom Archer falls for university student Vicki Hillstone, who tricks him to take a lie detector test and finds out he is bedding town girl Barbara. Vicki is distracting Tom from his studies so he reduces his overall vulnerability to love. He ‘shorts’ Vicki for later but he is devastated when she appears to make out with his best friend Richard.
The women counteract Tom’s love commodity investment with tragic consequences. He follows a glittering career in the petroleum industry while trying to take up with Vicki. After the deception of their beginning, can he and Vicki ever become a couple?
Review by Vesna Mcmaster, author and editor.
‘In ‘Short of Love’, Knox has taken the picaresque genre by the cerebrum, presenting a narrative alternately amusing, shocking, and deeply familiar by turns. The unrelenting pace and clean style combine within a paradoxical whole, both epic and microscopic simultaneously. Add to that an author/reader relationship that defies convention, and you have this curious and memorable work, which will present an entertaining challenge to the end.’
REVIEW OF SHORT OF LOVE
Reviewed By K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite
Review Rating: 5 Stars
Short Of Love is a work of picaresque satirical fiction penned by author Martin Knox, which explores the notion of love and relationships, and how we treat other human beings when we view them as commodities for love rather than as individuals. The action of this conceptual and intriguing piece centres on the deeply selfish Tom Archer, a student with eyes on the prize for a future as a career man. When he meets Vicki Hillstone, however, Tom’s distraction and desire for a relationship with her set him on a collision course in a way he never thought possible. After their university days are marred by secrecy and short-sightedness, can they ever achieve real happiness together?
Author Martin Knox has created a fascinating parody of modern love and its effects on life, whilst also managing to stay true to the nature of many relationships where competition becomes a feature over compassion. The narrative style is intriguing and may not suit all readers, but Knox’s relationship with the reader is as intimate as the central character Tom wishes he could be with Vicki, in all its irony. At its heart, the aspect of vulnerability is both pathetic and comical, rooted in the same deceptions that we all play out in order to attract a mate and seem better than we are. The dialogue conveys this sharpness well and brings the characters to a new level beyond what the narrator reveals to us. Overall, Short Of Love will interest any reader who enjoys dissecting relationships and the notion of romance itself.
