cover image Stop By

Stop By

Jean-Thomas Cullen. Clocktower (clocktowerbooks.com), $2.99 e-book (232p) ISBN 978-0-7433-1646-0

When Rick Moyer, a high-powered New York businessman, stops in the small town of Emery, Conn., he instantly becomes infatuated with widowed librarian Marian McCaughlin Charles. The narrative follows each of them in turn as Rick deals with his overbearing father and Marian learns to let go of her husband's memory, before bringing them together with an awkward attempt to introduce late drama. Cullen has what seems to be a limited understanding of 21st-century American life and culture. The depiction of a small-town library and Manhattan business life are both unrealistic, the characterizations are shallow at best, and there are too few markers to place the story concretely in a particular time period, despite its claim to be a 21st-century story. The basic, repetitive writing style and vague, sometimes contradictory timelines create challenges that could have been resolved with firmer editing. The seventh-grade reading level makes this unlikely to appeal to adults, but occasional references to drugs and sexual assault make it unsuitable for early teens. (Nov.)