As the title suggests, one thing leads to another in the author's engaging and thoughtfully-written debut. Just when you think you understand where the tale is taking you, Blaha misdirects and leads you somewhere infinitely more interesting and dramatic.
There is child abduction, a sperm donor, a bluegrass music festival, and much more in this imaginative story.
A brief excerpt depicts Blaha's colorful prose: "Winston's apartment was small, but tidy.
However, the white walls were in need of some adornment, and a few accent pillows in the living room wouldn't hurt. The kitchen featured typical gold and brown linoleum with repeating diamonds and hexagons inside which were smaller diamonds symmetrically spaced. The refrigerator's lack of contents led one to the conclusion that Winston's major source of sustenance was Larrea's Jatetxea."
Blaha has a keen eye for detail and brings this element to all her characters. This is a very good book and a truly significant first step. It may be overly long at 698 pages, and this may be due in part to Blaha's tendency to overwrite. She loves adjectives and descriptions, and if she had pulled back on some of that hyperbole and allowed the story itself to unfold, she would have been able to eliminate a lot of pages and some unimportant paragraphs.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Steven Rosen, 2014
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