Luck of the Irish by KG MacGregor

**Possible Spoiler Alert** See the comments for more details on why and make your decision.

Abigail works in a textile plant, and attends the Sumter Community College part-time; she wants to work in a radiology clinic one day, but cannot afford to give up her income for a full-time education. Her partner, Jackie, works in the Sumter County Animal Shelter.

If Jackie has one flaw, it is her big heart for animals, so the two of them have a rather large “family”: four dogs and three cats that Jackie could not bring herself to put down, and then there is an Irish setter in the shelter whose time is about to run out.

Their combined income is not even enough to buy a badly needed battery for Abigail’s car, so having to feed yet another mouth is not going to be greeted with enthusiasm by Abigail; in fact, she made Jackie promise not to bring more animals home.

Still, this particular dog reminds Jackie of one she had when she was a kid, and so she returns home with it, only to find Abigail in tears: the cats and the dogs have totally torn up her school workbook, and besides the massive amount of work that will have to be redone, a new workbook just is not budgeted. When she hears the setter’s distinctive bark, that tears it — she moves to her sister’s place, needing to come to rest and regain some sort of perspective.

It is rather rare that characters touch me so much that I find myself wishing for a good fairy to get them a break for the better they so much deserve. These two could as well have been created by O. Henry, but then this is a work by KG MacGregor — enough said. Skip this story at your own loss!

http://www.academyofbards.org/valentine14/2010/kgmacgregor_luckoftheirish.html

7 comments

  1. Ummh… Actually I only saw the announcement on uberetc. But thanks a lot for the link, I just read Mickey Minner's entry, and I'm going to read the others, too

    Joan

  2. How about a spoiler alert next time, you kind of gave away a lot of the story. Fortunately, I've already read it and I really liked it (so we agree on that). KG MacGregor is a favorite of mine and she did not disappoint.

  3. Rio,

    sorry if you feel that way, but I don't think that I gave away too much. I briefly
    described the two main characters, their situation, and their conflict. At no point did I indicate whether or not my "hope for a break" worked out, and the reference to O. Henry should/could not be taken for more than a quality comparison.

    Still…

    Rev, it might be a good idea to place the reviewer's 'nick' at the beginning of the review — it is inevitable that there are readers who'd rather not read the review, knowing that spoilers might be too much for their taste. They should have a fair warning.

    Joan

  4. Joan,

    It's kind of hard to keep the sting out of a criticism in this format, but please know that it was meant as constructive criticism. I thought, and still think, that your review was far too specific. I believe that it's better to allude to what happens without giving away specific story points. From a review, I want to know the theme, the tone, the quality; not exactly what happened (minus the ending).

    Nothing personal.

    Peace,
    Rio

  5. Hmmmm …. You all have a point – reviews contains information of the story in question and might divulge information on the storyline that readers might like to experience for them self.

    I for one don't usually hide the fact that the reviews that I write tend to be on romance stories with a happy ending! You could say that it's a "trademark" of mine as this is generally the kind of stories that I read and like to promote.

    In my reviews I usually give a broad view of the kind of romantic storyline that the story are based on. This might be something like "young love lost and found" or "out lesbian meets straight girl".

    I hope that this don't take away the fun of reading the stories though.

    I for one think that the value of the story are mostly based on the presentation by the writer and the ability to create and describe the characters, so I don't mind a rather explicit description of the storyline it "feeds" my reading gen and make me look forward to a good (reading) time.

    I'll keep in mind to maybe put up a SPOILER ALERT every once in awhile and maybe readers will stop reading a review if thy fell that its getting to explicit ?

    Hope that You all have fun reading or writing reviews 😉

    UK

  6. Rio,

    I was not "stung" by your comment, but thanks for your concilliary words, anyway!

    I still think that putting the nick near the top is a good idea, so everybody has a better chance to skip reviews the style of which they'll probably not like. And that is bound to happen.

    (Rev, I'd rather discuss this via email, but my server has been down for over a week now, due to provider problems.)

    Joan

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.