Okay, I had a steampunk trilogy I'd collected but not yet read next on my reading menu. Except everyone seems to be bringing really, really good short stories/novellas to my attention. Apples should be Red was reviewed on Dear Author by Laura Florand.
This book is short but so damn good.
I was going to put a nice bookcover pic here but Blogger won't allow Firefox either. I downloaded Firefox because Blogger wouldn't allow IE. I guess Chrome is next. Bummer. It let me d/l a pic this morning, but not now. Go figure.
John's father Tom, and his wife Karen's mother, Beverly, are total opposites. Tom is curmudgeonly, profane and a hermit; Bev is always put together right and always has a plan. Due to termites and rotten plumbing, Tom is forced by his son and daughter-in-law to host Thanksgiving and Bev is forced to stay with Tom for three very long days.
What happens is the rest of the story. I swear I had a smile on my face as I read the whole book. And I had to read the book when I heard about the gnome. I wish here'd been more about the gnome. (As an aside, years ago I read a mystery series; can't remember the author or any of the titles, but one book had a traveling gnome. The gnome was stolen from the hero's mother's back garden and sent them notes from different countries and cities. They never knew where he'd turn up next, what the note would say or who had stolen the gnome. Either the author or the heroine was named Elizabeth.)
This story (I'm back to talking about 'Apples' now) does not have numbered chapters. Instead there are headings which by themselves ought to be enough to make anyone read this book. For example:
* Stepping in Chicken Shit
* Clean-up in Aisle Ten
* Gnomes R Us
We do get both POVs although I wouldn't call them deep. This is a book to savor. I loved Tom, I loved how both Tom and Bev compromised and I believed in their HEA. I wish I had written this book.
You can find it here.
Oh, I almost forgot! I hereby award this the Lori grade of ten inches. :-D