Randy Attwood's Blog, page 22
May 9, 2012
Reviewer: Another Outstanding Novel
Long review for CRAZY ABOUT YOU, but this author isn't complaining!
Randy Attwood, author of a favorite novel of mine (BLOW UP THE ROSES) has written another outstanding novel. Written in first person narrative, CRAZY ABOUT YOU allows the reader to be privy to how the protagonist in this novel (a 16-year-old teenager named Brad Adams) deals with the tumultuous hand of cards he has been dealt in his lifetime and what choices he is forced to make in this deeply meaningful novel.
The reader can't help but love the main character (Brad) because not only is he coming of age in this novel but because of his circumstances he must grow up real fast -- and does! The myriad of Brad's experiences gives him great "character" as an individual and that is a very fine thing and hard to come by. Much of our world is sadly absent of people with good "character." I wouldn't exactly put this novel in a "coming-of-age" category because it is deeply charged with many adult themes but I can't completely exclude it as that either.
The setting takes place, for the most part, on the grounds of an insane asylum. That is enough to draw in most any suspenseful thriller reader ... myself included! The novel is made more real with the fact that the insane asylum is actually a real asylum/state hospital that opened in 1914 and is still open today -- located in Kansas. Brad's father is employed as a dentist for the Larned Insane Asylum in the 1960s and, as such, he resides on the grounds of the campus with his son (Brad) and his daughter (Sally). But there are many more "settings" whereby Brad (main character) finds himself -- in high school, in love, at the mercy of a madman in the asylum, as a witness and so much more .
The author does a brilliant job picking each and every situation and describes in detail, as well as from Brad's first-person view, somewhat insurmountable experiences and how Brad has to act with each and every incredibly unique situation. Funny situations, very serious situations and life or death situations. Dull moments are few and far between in this psychological adventure always leading the reader to want to know what is next and what choices Brad will make -- as a boy and as a man. He is a young man with broad shoulders made necessary by many unexpected situations and emergencies in this novel.
When Brad's father has to leave for a dental convention for a week Brad is left home on the grounds of the State Hospital with his wild and somewhat-slutty sister and whom he is trying to look after while his father is away. Their mother left the family a while ago and Brad finds himself forced into the protective role of keeping an eye on his sister (only a year older than himself) and her roaming ways. He must play mother, father and brother at the same time for the week that his father is gone. Which is somewhat of a small task compared to the circumstances he falls into in just one week. Brad also works in the cafeteria of the State Hospital and sees and experiences more than any other teenager could possibly imagine. He takes on the burdens of getting to know some of the younger patients and falls into the role of caring for them too. He listens to them in a way others cannot. Especially one patient in particular. That "one" being a teenage girl named Suzanne whom Brad thinks he has fallen in love with. He knows that she is not crazy but, instead, a molestation victim. Like with his sister, Brad will go to the ends of the earth to try and protect Suzanne also. Mostly from herself.
If that is not enough (and I have already left out a lot) Brad also has much UP FRONT AND PERSONAL knowledge of -- and experiences with -- many of the adult loonies that know Larned State Hospital only as their home. For Brad, the hospital is his home away from home not only to work at the cafeteria there but to get to know and befriend the staff and just how nuts some of THEM are too. A certain percentage of the staff do not fall under the diagnosis of "crazy" but they are far cries from persons giving back to society. Of course there are exceptions and one of the nurses on staff is his father's girlfriend. A kind woman who Brad rather admires and who later helps Brad during his toughest of times. Although, in this novel, there really is no escape for "tough times" for Brad.
To add insult to injury to Brad's extraordinary circumstances and burdens while his father is away for a week ... an elderly lady in the town is brutally murdered and her daughter is missing to complicate things further. The elder lady had been a good presence in Brad's life over the years before her gruesome demise leaving him grief stricken as well as wondering who could possibly have done such a terrible thing. With Brad's broad and wide knowledge of many of the people in the community and on the grounds of The Hospital he is able to assist the authorities in finding the guilty party. Especially when a couple of her body parts are found in the cafeteria food.
Brad is at that awkward stage between being a teenage boy and a young man. Because of the myriad of circumstances Brad is presented with in CRAZY ABOUT YOU and, in most cases being the victim of circumstance, the reader can relate to him more on an adult level. He has more responsibilities than most adults do, he has a great capacity beyond his years for compassion, empathy, positive morality, and wisdom. Yet the fact remains he is still a teenager dealing with the pressures of high school and those raging hormones. A girl from his school becomes smitten with him and she is far from being a prude and let's Brad know it. She is absolutely crazy about him which is a great turn on for Brad. Yet his heart strings are pulled all the while back to the girl in the asylum who is there for the wrong reasons and whom he cares for deeply. What is a guy to do? The author pens the sexuality of a teenage boy into the storyline when he could have just left it out. Had the author left out that sexuality "Brad" would have been some unbelievable teenage superhero in this novel. Having said that, however, Brad does become a hero in many many ways in this novel. Spiritual ways, secular ways, tangible ways , etc. and all expertly crafted by the author so that it is not too over-the-top (the entire storyline).
CRAZY ABOUT YOU is a tale of a young man's physical journey as well as an internal one. By being written in first person narrative the reader FEELS and intimately knows all of Brad's struggles. Brad literally has to fight for his life in this novel when he gets thrown into the cell of a gorilla-sized madman in the asylum while at the same time experiencing an internal discovery of himself and what choices need to be made. TOUGH CHOICES.
The reader is given a first-hand account of Brad's journey through the realism of the institutionalized, the burdens of circumstance, and asking and understanding the human psyche from cradle to grave. The book also weaves together many of the states of affairs and the signs and times many eras and societies go through (or crumble down to). For instance, whole generations suffering from lenient child rearing. As well as the questions we all ask ourselves from time to time including Brad. Like what "being IN love is." Do we create our own cosmos or our own little worlds? Brad himself ponders that and he answers that very question for himself and much more. He understands, at such a tender age, the great lessons that life teaches you. And, throughout this novel, ANY READER just may look at life a little differently when several pages in this novel devotes theories and opinions on human psychology.
This novel is more compelling, more gripping and convincing page after page. Give it a try! The storyline will be crazy FOR YOU!
Randy Attwood, author of a favorite novel of mine (BLOW UP THE ROSES) has written another outstanding novel. Written in first person narrative, CRAZY ABOUT YOU allows the reader to be privy to how the protagonist in this novel (a 16-year-old teenager named Brad Adams) deals with the tumultuous hand of cards he has been dealt in his lifetime and what choices he is forced to make in this deeply meaningful novel.
The reader can't help but love the main character (Brad) because not only is he coming of age in this novel but because of his circumstances he must grow up real fast -- and does! The myriad of Brad's experiences gives him great "character" as an individual and that is a very fine thing and hard to come by. Much of our world is sadly absent of people with good "character." I wouldn't exactly put this novel in a "coming-of-age" category because it is deeply charged with many adult themes but I can't completely exclude it as that either.The setting takes place, for the most part, on the grounds of an insane asylum. That is enough to draw in most any suspenseful thriller reader ... myself included! The novel is made more real with the fact that the insane asylum is actually a real asylum/state hospital that opened in 1914 and is still open today -- located in Kansas. Brad's father is employed as a dentist for the Larned Insane Asylum in the 1960s and, as such, he resides on the grounds of the campus with his son (Brad) and his daughter (Sally). But there are many more "settings" whereby Brad (main character) finds himself -- in high school, in love, at the mercy of a madman in the asylum, as a witness and so much more .
The author does a brilliant job picking each and every situation and describes in detail, as well as from Brad's first-person view, somewhat insurmountable experiences and how Brad has to act with each and every incredibly unique situation. Funny situations, very serious situations and life or death situations. Dull moments are few and far between in this psychological adventure always leading the reader to want to know what is next and what choices Brad will make -- as a boy and as a man. He is a young man with broad shoulders made necessary by many unexpected situations and emergencies in this novel.
When Brad's father has to leave for a dental convention for a week Brad is left home on the grounds of the State Hospital with his wild and somewhat-slutty sister and whom he is trying to look after while his father is away. Their mother left the family a while ago and Brad finds himself forced into the protective role of keeping an eye on his sister (only a year older than himself) and her roaming ways. He must play mother, father and brother at the same time for the week that his father is gone. Which is somewhat of a small task compared to the circumstances he falls into in just one week. Brad also works in the cafeteria of the State Hospital and sees and experiences more than any other teenager could possibly imagine. He takes on the burdens of getting to know some of the younger patients and falls into the role of caring for them too. He listens to them in a way others cannot. Especially one patient in particular. That "one" being a teenage girl named Suzanne whom Brad thinks he has fallen in love with. He knows that she is not crazy but, instead, a molestation victim. Like with his sister, Brad will go to the ends of the earth to try and protect Suzanne also. Mostly from herself.
If that is not enough (and I have already left out a lot) Brad also has much UP FRONT AND PERSONAL knowledge of -- and experiences with -- many of the adult loonies that know Larned State Hospital only as their home. For Brad, the hospital is his home away from home not only to work at the cafeteria there but to get to know and befriend the staff and just how nuts some of THEM are too. A certain percentage of the staff do not fall under the diagnosis of "crazy" but they are far cries from persons giving back to society. Of course there are exceptions and one of the nurses on staff is his father's girlfriend. A kind woman who Brad rather admires and who later helps Brad during his toughest of times. Although, in this novel, there really is no escape for "tough times" for Brad.
To add insult to injury to Brad's extraordinary circumstances and burdens while his father is away for a week ... an elderly lady in the town is brutally murdered and her daughter is missing to complicate things further. The elder lady had been a good presence in Brad's life over the years before her gruesome demise leaving him grief stricken as well as wondering who could possibly have done such a terrible thing. With Brad's broad and wide knowledge of many of the people in the community and on the grounds of The Hospital he is able to assist the authorities in finding the guilty party. Especially when a couple of her body parts are found in the cafeteria food.
Brad is at that awkward stage between being a teenage boy and a young man. Because of the myriad of circumstances Brad is presented with in CRAZY ABOUT YOU and, in most cases being the victim of circumstance, the reader can relate to him more on an adult level. He has more responsibilities than most adults do, he has a great capacity beyond his years for compassion, empathy, positive morality, and wisdom. Yet the fact remains he is still a teenager dealing with the pressures of high school and those raging hormones. A girl from his school becomes smitten with him and she is far from being a prude and let's Brad know it. She is absolutely crazy about him which is a great turn on for Brad. Yet his heart strings are pulled all the while back to the girl in the asylum who is there for the wrong reasons and whom he cares for deeply. What is a guy to do? The author pens the sexuality of a teenage boy into the storyline when he could have just left it out. Had the author left out that sexuality "Brad" would have been some unbelievable teenage superhero in this novel. Having said that, however, Brad does become a hero in many many ways in this novel. Spiritual ways, secular ways, tangible ways , etc. and all expertly crafted by the author so that it is not too over-the-top (the entire storyline).
CRAZY ABOUT YOU is a tale of a young man's physical journey as well as an internal one. By being written in first person narrative the reader FEELS and intimately knows all of Brad's struggles. Brad literally has to fight for his life in this novel when he gets thrown into the cell of a gorilla-sized madman in the asylum while at the same time experiencing an internal discovery of himself and what choices need to be made. TOUGH CHOICES.
The reader is given a first-hand account of Brad's journey through the realism of the institutionalized, the burdens of circumstance, and asking and understanding the human psyche from cradle to grave. The book also weaves together many of the states of affairs and the signs and times many eras and societies go through (or crumble down to). For instance, whole generations suffering from lenient child rearing. As well as the questions we all ask ourselves from time to time including Brad. Like what "being IN love is." Do we create our own cosmos or our own little worlds? Brad himself ponders that and he answers that very question for himself and much more. He understands, at such a tender age, the great lessons that life teaches you. And, throughout this novel, ANY READER just may look at life a little differently when several pages in this novel devotes theories and opinions on human psychology.
This novel is more compelling, more gripping and convincing page after page. Give it a try! The storyline will be crazy FOR YOU!
May 8, 2012
Favorite lines from One More Victim
Her face at that moment is still the sweetest vision I have ever seen. It was full of yearning, yet already satisfied. Her complexion mirrored the innocence of her heart, untouched yet by the cruelty of the world and the far greater cruelty of our expectations for ourselves in that world.
One More Victim
One More Victim
May 7, 2012
Retirement Gloat and a Hint of a Good Thing
Retirement gloat: Woke up this morning and knew I could stay in bed and sleep another hour. Raining. Lovely to listen to as had coffee and read the KC Star and NYT. Rain stopped. We took a rather long walk. Simple lunch including fresh lettuce salad from the garden. Sun came out. Spent some time on the computer promoting my works and providing files requested from a yet-to-be-named house that is going to publish Blow Up the Roses. Mowed back yard making garden look gorgeous. Tomatoes planted early all have flowers and some have set. 3 p.m. arrives. 70 degrees. Mix Boodles martini. Up. Drink same in back yard while reading Evan Connell's "A Long Desire," which found at estate sale. Time to start grill and cook those chicken wings been marinating all night and also the first ears of corn in their husks. All was yummy. Finish off with a Manhattan, on the rocks. Ahh....retirement.
May 4, 2012
Golf Story, Well Received...What a Review
I published Downswing a few weeks ago thinking it would only appeal to golfers, and golf fiction must be a really narrow niche. Dear Katy loved it. And here is her review. Golf widows, read and learn:
This is the latest short story from Randy Attwood and will bring me up-to-date again with his works. I like to stay abreast of Randy's writings, because he has such a terrific and interesting style, each book unique but containing a familiar voice. Now, I had to wonder exactly how he would make golf interesting, especially in just eight pages, but I shouldn't have worried. Listen to this description of placing a ball on a tee: And eighteen times this easy gesture, this stooping over with the tee between the fingers, the ball hidden, protected in the perspiring palm, the insertion into ground the wooden link to earth the ball would soon be contacting - all this, for me, had given the gesture a quality of sacredness. Isn't that gorgeous? The story is full of beautiful prose like that.
"It's just a stupid game," my wife had always told me. How could I explain it was more than just a game...It was the celebration of a kind of mystery; the fusion of the mechanics of physics and the feeling of soul." That quote sort of covers the overall idea behind the story. There is also a subtext regarding the golfer coming to terms with a change in his life, but I won't go into details on that to avoid spoilers.
An absolutely gorgeous story, voluptuous descriptions that just beg for someone to paint the scenes in oils. Who thought that a short story about golf could be so intense, so vivid and so engaging - I literally walked out to the mailbox with my Kindle in my hand, reading. You don't want to miss this latest from Randy Attwood - go get it, and his other works while you're at it. You really won't regret it.
This is the latest short story from Randy Attwood and will bring me up-to-date again with his works. I like to stay abreast of Randy's writings, because he has such a terrific and interesting style, each book unique but containing a familiar voice. Now, I had to wonder exactly how he would make golf interesting, especially in just eight pages, but I shouldn't have worried. Listen to this description of placing a ball on a tee: And eighteen times this easy gesture, this stooping over with the tee between the fingers, the ball hidden, protected in the perspiring palm, the insertion into ground the wooden link to earth the ball would soon be contacting - all this, for me, had given the gesture a quality of sacredness. Isn't that gorgeous? The story is full of beautiful prose like that.
"It's just a stupid game," my wife had always told me. How could I explain it was more than just a game...It was the celebration of a kind of mystery; the fusion of the mechanics of physics and the feeling of soul." That quote sort of covers the overall idea behind the story. There is also a subtext regarding the golfer coming to terms with a change in his life, but I won't go into details on that to avoid spoilers.
An absolutely gorgeous story, voluptuous descriptions that just beg for someone to paint the scenes in oils. Who thought that a short story about golf could be so intense, so vivid and so engaging - I literally walked out to the mailbox with my Kindle in my hand, reading. You don't want to miss this latest from Randy Attwood - go get it, and his other works while you're at it. You really won't regret it.
May 2, 2012
First Live Web Radio Interview Done
Well, that was a hoot. It was supposed to be an hour interview and it went to an hour and 15 minutes. I had no idea I could babble on so. I don't know about you, but I hate listening to my own voice, but now I"ve done so and I don't think I embarrassed myself too much. If you want to listen to it, it's here: http://blogtalk.vo.llnwd.net/o23/show/3/191/show_3191593.mp3
I have no idea how many listeners there were, but I have taken the attitude that the fewer listeners there were, the more precious they are to me.
I was nervous as hell. My shirt was soaked afterward. I 'd do it again in a heart beat. It's like I'm finally talking about what I've been wanting to talk about all these years.
I have no idea how many listeners there were, but I have taken the attitude that the fewer listeners there were, the more precious they are to me.
I was nervous as hell. My shirt was soaked afterward. I 'd do it again in a heart beat. It's like I'm finally talking about what I've been wanting to talk about all these years.
April 29, 2012
My First Web Radio Live Interview Wednesday
Well, this may be cool. I'm to be interviewed live on a web-based radio show Wednesday (5/2) noon, KC time here. The session will focus on Crazy About You.
It's made me go back and look at Crazy and try to understand why I like it, really a lot. Personally, for me, there is the memory that when I wrote the ending scene and how, subconsciously, I must have named a character what I did, it blew me across the room.
But, looking at it technically now, I realized that although it's in first person, it's in a method I discovered (not new I'm sure, but new to me) I call the looking-back first person. The story starts in clear first person from Brad's point of view, the high school student living on the grounds of a mental hospital because his father is a dentist there and the state provides free housing. But at times in the story, Brad is presented in the future and reflecting back upon what he is relating.
Finding that technique for Crazy opened up a whole new range of possibilities for other stories I was struggling with. It made me realize I could tell The Saltness of Time from TWO first person points of view. The opening first-person POV is the narrator telling what the second first-person POV (Brad again) is saying. I think this sets up a wonderful dynamic. It gives the story both a sense of distance and immediacy. And, quite frankly, I haven't thought about that until just now.
But I digress. I'm really looking forward to discussing Crazy About You. I've always been scared of radio. Very nervous. I think it will help that I will be in my den on my phone. Tune in and see what a fool I can make of myself. I'm giving myself 50-50 odds on this one.
It's made me go back and look at Crazy and try to understand why I like it, really a lot. Personally, for me, there is the memory that when I wrote the ending scene and how, subconsciously, I must have named a character what I did, it blew me across the room.
But, looking at it technically now, I realized that although it's in first person, it's in a method I discovered (not new I'm sure, but new to me) I call the looking-back first person. The story starts in clear first person from Brad's point of view, the high school student living on the grounds of a mental hospital because his father is a dentist there and the state provides free housing. But at times in the story, Brad is presented in the future and reflecting back upon what he is relating.
Finding that technique for Crazy opened up a whole new range of possibilities for other stories I was struggling with. It made me realize I could tell The Saltness of Time from TWO first person points of view. The opening first-person POV is the narrator telling what the second first-person POV (Brad again) is saying. I think this sets up a wonderful dynamic. It gives the story both a sense of distance and immediacy. And, quite frankly, I haven't thought about that until just now.
But I digress. I'm really looking forward to discussing Crazy About You. I've always been scared of radio. Very nervous. I think it will help that I will be in my den on my phone. Tune in and see what a fool I can make of myself. I'm giving myself 50-50 odds on this one.
April 28, 2012
Couple of freebie announcements
Free download for Kindle users of A Match Made in Heaven ends midnight PDT April 28.
Starting that same time will be a free download for three days of By Pain Possessed.
A reminder that if you don't have a Kindle, you can go to Amazon and download, free of charge, software that will put an app on your desktop for either PC or Mac that will let you read these Kindle files.
Starting that same time will be a free download for three days of By Pain Possessed.
A reminder that if you don't have a Kindle, you can go to Amazon and download, free of charge, software that will put an app on your desktop for either PC or Mac that will let you read these Kindle files.
April 27, 2012
The Back Story on The 41st Sermon
Decided to get on a marketing push for The 41st Sermon after an avid reader I know really well and very much trust called it the best of my works he's read. And another reader I trust chimed in his approval, too.
It's one of my most undersold works and that puzzles me. More on that later, but first a little of the back story.
I was managing editor at The Olathe (KS) Daily News when I wrote this book. It was a good stretch in my life then. I had been able to assemble a great newsroom and we were doing really good news reporting. As a suburb to Kansas City, we beat the KC Star 2-1 in circulation and whipping them daily on local news coverage. It embarrassed them greatly when my court house reporter, Andy Hoffman, was able to find out and break the Royals cocaine story before the KC Star. (At that time, they had a morning and afternoon edition and their afternoon edition could only quote our morning story; that, folks, is called a sweet clean scoop in the newspaper world).
But what I really wanted to do was write novels. I would get up at 5 a.m., two hours before I headed to work. My son, who not yet in his teens would also wake himself up to practice the piano (Koji Attwood, google him, he went on to get a doctorate from Julliard and has a performing career). I was in the basement pecking at an early computer, an Atari 1040, if I remember correctly, and he was a floor above practicing.
On Saturdays, we drove from Olathe to Lawrence where he had an hour lesson with a KU piano professor. My wife shopped downtown Lawrence; I sat in the "Casbah" coffee shop and edited and rewrote.
I didn't keep any writing diaries, so I don't remember how long it took me to complete it. I never start with any sort of outline. The only thing I knew about The 41st Sermon was than a middle-aged Episcopal priest was headed on his yearly, weeklong work-vacation at a fishing resort to rest and write the outlines of his sermons for the coming year.
I didn't know what was going to happen to him when he got there. When his parishioner's wife showed up alone, things started to get interesting. You create characters and start to live with them in your head and they come to life for you and you hope you can bring them to life for the reader.
I've written another blog about the connection to that great Southern writer Walker Percy and won't repeat that here because this is the link.
I thought I might use the scan of that note to create some curiosity among Percy fans about The 41st Sermon. And, it's odd, the link above is one of my most visited blog posts. But it hasn't seem to have translated into downloads. It could be the Percy fan base, which has quite a few academics, look down their noses as self-published works and this whole ebook phenomenon and have refused to go digital. I've made it a free download a couple of times through Kindle Select program and usually free downloads will be followed with buys. But not this time.
It could be there are too many points of views, but I thought they were handled well and all those points of view provide the reader with information the individual characters don't have about each other. I think it makes the reader a sort of an omniscient viewer, but one who will encounter some surprises along the way.
I liked Father Talley and his struggles with his faith and his sexuality and himself. I liked Molly, the very sexy and independent siren. I liked Fr. Talley's wife, Kathryn, and her own road of self-discovery with the help of the psychiatrist, Richard, who is Molly's wife and has his own secrets to keep. I think the interactions of these people have an Updike sort of feel to it.
I think the novel deserves more readers and I hope this might encourage more people to get the book.
April 22, 2012
Sci-fi short story, By Pain Possessed, now live on Kindle Direct
I once took a creative writing course at the University of Kansas from that master writer of classical science fiction, James Gunn. By Pain Possessed was one of my efforts for that class and he was favorable to it, and actually suggested the last paragraph. Gunn was really a very good teacher. He explained point of view in a way that suddenly made it come alive for me. He was stern with his criticism, but fair. I remember him criticizing one young man's story: "A drunk bemoaning his fate is really boring." According to the Wikipedia, he is still living and in Kansas City. I wonder what he thinks of this whole epublishing phenomena. He was very business-like when it came to writing: you wrote to get published and you got published to make some money. I remember when I took his class I was one of the older students. He was then working on, and would read to us, segments from a novel about the changing of the millennium. 2001 was not far off. After he read one segment, I raised my hand, and noted that it seemed he had forgotten that the new year does not come to the entire world at the same time, but according to time segments. His face blanched, I mean white. He was, I believe, aghast that such a simple scientific fact had escaped him. That novel, which I believe was called "The Millennium Blues" factors in that time-change reality.
James Gunn's Wikipedia reference is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gunn_(author)
He was a master of the craft and I was lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from him. If you are interested in classical science fiction, I encourage you to encounter him as well.
James Gunn's Wikipedia reference is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gunn_(author)
He was a master of the craft and I was lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from him. If you are interested in classical science fiction, I encourage you to encounter him as well.
April 18, 2012
Excerpt from One More Victim
One More Victim is still my most downloaded work. I like this excerpt:
Her face at that moment is still the sweetest vision I have ever seen. It was full of yearning, yet already satisfied. Her complexion mirrored the innocence of her heart, untouched yet by the cruelty of the world and the far greater cruelty of our expectations for ourselves in that world. She opened her eyes and leaned her forehead to rest against my lips. I whispered her name as though it were magic. We were in another world.
One More Victim
Her face at that moment is still the sweetest vision I have ever seen. It was full of yearning, yet already satisfied. Her complexion mirrored the innocence of her heart, untouched yet by the cruelty of the world and the far greater cruelty of our expectations for ourselves in that world. She opened her eyes and leaned her forehead to rest against my lips. I whispered her name as though it were magic. We were in another world.
One More Victim
