Title: The Glass Key
Author: Benjamin Parsons
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: October 19, 2012
Genres: Romance, Paranormal, Historical
Length: 46 pages
Source: I received a free copy from the author.
Rating: 3 Stars
Blurb:
All alone on a howling night, with the fire blazing in the hearth, you hear a key turn in the lock – and see the apparition of your long-lost love enter the room… For ten years Sam neither saw nor heard of his beautiful Araminta, who vanished before their wedding day – but now, suddenly she steps into his life again, with a fantastic adventure to tell: her journey to unlock the secret of the mysterious glass key. Part of the collection The Green Lady and Other Stories.
Content Warning: Adultery.
Review:
Unconditional love isn’t realistic, but it sure is romantic.
The gothic elements of the plot were handled nicely. Yes, this had a historical setting so far as I could tell, but nearly everything that happened in it could just as easily occur today. It’s tricky to create such a timeless storyline, so I must tip my cap to the author for not only pulling it off but for encouraging readers to think critically before decided which era this tale might have happened. Strong arguments can be made for many different time periods depending on how certain context clues are interpreted and what assumptions the reader makes about the rest of it.
It would have been helpful to have more time spent dedicated to explaining what really happened to Araminta. As poetic as it was for these former lovers to be reunited, I kept wishing she would stop dancing around the subject and tell him exactly what she did after their engagement ended. Their breakup caused both of them a great deal of psychological pain even while accounting for the reasons for it. There was plenty of space left here to explore the repercussions of that as well as what both characters thought about their decisions now that they’d had about a decade to mull over it.
Taking risks is something I love to see in every genre I read, and writing a romantic story about a couple who had a hard breakup definitely doesn’t seem to be common for the romance genre from what I’ve observed. I was intrigued by the idea of Araminta and Sam having a chance to talk again and dissect what went wrong in their relationship. While I’ll leave it up to other readers to decide which one of them them to side with – or maybe to decide that neither character is someone they want to root for at all – I will say here that Mr. Parsons has added something valuable to this genre that I hope other romance and speculative fiction writers will find inspiration in his creativity as well.
The Glass Key was thought provoking.