Review: Not bad, but needs refinement
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2013
Escape to Love is a short story featuring Maria, a young single mother trying to put her years of physical abuse at the hands of her violent partner behind her, along with her young autistic daughter, Lucy. When her daughter is late home one evening, her anxiety is heightened by broadcast news that two prison escapees are on the loose, after a prison officer has been hit over the head and killed. One is a convicted rapist and murderer, the other a fraudster. Her daughter arrives home safely: but one of the escapees also turns up on her doorstep. Which one is he?I have to be honest, the whole thing is just a tad incredible and unlikely, especially as Maria's feelings towards the escapee turn to something quite improbable. The writing is rather `raw' and unrefined, the text is riddled with punctuation errors and omissions, and the dialogue is a bit stilted. I think there's more mileage in the plot which would have made it all a little more believable. And yet, I have to say it's quite an enjoyable story that you can read in just an hour, and Maria's emotional confusion over the situation in which she finds herself is well conveyed. The author shows promise: a good developmental and technical editor will buff this shortie to a shine.