Commentary From the 2018 Writer's Digest Self Published Book Awards
Author has chosen well to write this book in the present tense, giving the reader a sense of the now that brings so many of the book’s settings and sensory details to life. We get a chilling wind, the dampness of the forest, the movement of water, and the author engages a tremendous sense of experience in the realm of the story. Author excels at gorgeous phrasing to elicit emotions throughout. When the strangers begin their walk together, they share ‘the parallel depths of their wounds.’ I would have loved some dialogue here to give these characters individual depth and differentiation, but the author moves the pace so naturally and so well that the lack of dialogue can be accepted as a narrative device. When the storm hits and she loses him, we’re given a resonant insight, that he never left her. We can hear the plaintive cry as she calls out to her soulmate, and the silence and futility deeply move us. We feel the loss, an emotion so beautifully created by the author in well-chosen s