Review: Fast-paced short story--complete with HEA
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 31, 2014
When short stories work...they're fantastic!  There was so very much to admire and enjoy about GUNS 'N' TULIPS by Kristine Cayne.  The action scenes were so well written, the emotional reactions solid, the inside view of gangsters and bank employees captivating.  Ms. Cayne did an outstanding job including just enough of the characters' pasts to make this short read make sense (and make me as a reader CARE).  The characters were 3-dimensional.  Pacing rocked.I thought I had time to read it before my husband came to bed and said "lights out," but couldn't get past halfway.  What a disappointment!  I had a hard time falling asleep, with this story playing through my mind...wondering what would happen next and how Connor/Conman would get Lily out of there alive.  Both Lily and Connor (whose HEA was desperately interrupted when "he agreed to go undercover with the mob and infiltrate the ruthless Bank Bandits" [blurb provided by author]) were likeable, sympathetic characters, and I was so happy to see how easily they reconciled (Lily's a smart woman).The last scene zipped past really quickly.  Lots of resolution happened in the space of about 4 paragraphs (per blurb, "his badge, his friends, and his fiancee).  I would've loved to have seen more of an emotional response from Connor, after all (per blurb)..."Connor's chance to get his old life back"....and let Connor have any response at all to the rest of his team (the police) acknowledging he'd been undercover.  The good guys have this HUGE revelation (that Connor was undercover)...and they act, true, but this epiphany fell flat.  Could be I'm the only reader who felt this way; I imagine many, many will find this short perfect as is.