Monday, September 5, 2011

Sounds Like Love

by Lisa Weaver from the August 22, 2011 issue

Tagline: Callie never believed the old family legend about the love bells--until they chimed for her...

NOTE: So here's the August 22 issue. Don't know how the August 29 issue could have arrived before this one, but the ways of the post office are a mystery to me.

In A Nutshell: When picking up blueprints for her grandparents' greenhouse, Callie meets a nice man on the elevator. At a family dinner later, it turns out he's the architect of the greenhouse and was invited to dessert.

Observations: In my online class, I give my students a list of common plotlines that I've seen in Woman's World magazine. One of the categories is "Proving a Saying or a Loved One's Advice," and this story loosely qualifies, except it's not a saying, like "Opposites attract..." or advice, like "The way to land a man is to do little things for him." This time it's something that happens to the heroine. In this case, it's hearing bells.

What I thought was cute was the fact that Weaver kept tricking you into thinking Callie has heard the bells. First, it's the man's cellphone. Ah, you think, that's him. But then he and Callie part when the elevator takes him to his floor. Darn.

But you are a savvy reader. You know that it's boy meets girl, boy loses girl, so you keep hoping.

At her grandparents' house, she hears the doorbell when he arrives and you think to yourself, Yes! Also, he brings a set of wind chimes with him, and you think--okay, pow, it's gonna be a double whammy. But then, the chimes don't ring. Finally, they're on a date a few days later and Callie does hear bells--bells that no one hears but her and you get that warm happy feeling that they're going to be walking down the aisle very soon.


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