Two Turtle Doves

​Blackthorn Book Tours has a wonderful new “Quick Bite” tour.  These are shorter stories than the normal novels we get to choose from.  I happen to really dig short stories and novellas so I jumped at this opportunity.  It’s nice to have a short story to read on a lunch break or waiting at the airport, that kind of thing.  Just a little quick retreat and escape from the crazy hustle and bustle of day to day living in these modern times.  Everyone is so go, go, go.  So surely at only about five thousand words (around nineteen pages) anyone could fit this in for a reader’s rapid retreat.

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​Here is the blurb that made me request the book:
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​“Suicidal teenager Rich Anthony was on his way to step in front of an express train when he spots a battered acoustic guitar left outside an Oxfam shop. Intrigued, Rich postpones his plans, takes the guitar home and teaches himself to play.
What happens next changes his life.”

I’m not going to say anything else really about the actual story itself.  I want you all to read it.  It was fantastic!  
 
First of all, I read this in less than twenty minutes.  Such a quick read.  Part of that is because the plot is constantly moving forward at an intriguing pace.  Plus, this is a story that surrounds only a few characters so you aren’t trying to figure out who did what with whom and when and why, always having to jog your memory thinking to yourself ‘was that the guy that was in the story a few chapters back?  What was his deal again?, making you go backwards in the story instead of forward and thereby disrupting the flow of the imagination.  Not happening in this short story.  The limited character structure helps with keeping their individual personalities straight and is a perfect way to continually establish a timeline, since you are only dealing with just a few people.
 
I actually liked this story enough I read it twice.  The author uses the most wonderful descriptions with a very impactful vocabulary to create specific images in the mind of the reader.  Even though it is a short story, the amount of information presented is staggering but entertaining.  Everything is immaculately detailed, direct, precise and expertly constructed to beckon the reader to press on to the end and find out what happens.
 
The one thing I enjoyed most about this story is the idea of karma worked into the plot line.  Karma is supposed to be quite fickle at times but always there somewhere.  Here we have a front row seat to the unfolding of true karmic retribution and the inevitable cosmic balance of the universe.  Truly a tantalizing tale.  A must read for horror, suspense and thriller lovers.  An absolute must have!!!
 
RATINGS
5/5 Stars

From The Author:

Richard Wall
I grew up in a small market town in rural Herefordshire before joining the Royal Navy. After 22 years in the submarine service and having travelled extensively, I now live and write in rural Worcestershire.

I have written two novels, Fat Man Blues and Near Death, and a bunch of short stories and poems.

My stories reflect my life-long fascination with the dark underbelly of American culture; be it tales of the Wild West, the simmering menace of the Deep South, the poetry of Charles Bukowski, or Langston Hughes, the writing of Andrew Vachss and John Steinbeck, or the music of Charley Patton, Son House, Johnny Cash, or Tom Waits.

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This image will surely arouse your curiosity about this story, no?