by Mary Ann Joyce from the May 18, 2020 issueTagline: When Isabel heads to the river to try her hand at fly-fishing, she never expects her catch-of-the-day will be a new chance at love.
Stream-of-Consciousness Observations:
- The very first sentence offers so much information. Isabel writes for a magazine, she likes trying new things and she just ended a relationship.
- In the second paragraph, we get more of a feel for Isabel and I have to say, I like her. She's a go-getter. She's confident and fine with being alone.
- Love that description..."...a handsome fisherman had arrived, his square-jawed profile etched against the blue cloudless sky." Um, I'll have what she's having.
- LOLing at her trying to pretend she's fine to save a little face. These aren't the days when women/girls do the opposite--pretend to need help so the man will feel useful.
- Oh, no! I feel sorry for her. Those river rocks can be slippery. I'm reminded of the times I've hiked with my family and my boys and husband are always hovering nearby just in case I slip.
- He looks familiar? Hm.
- I love sexy stubble. I want to be president of the Sexy Stubble Fan Club.
- I love this exchange where they exchange names and Tom isn't going to let her disappear.
- What????? Tom is the author of the book she was using to learn to fly-fish? SURPRISE ACHIEVED! Excellent plot twist that I didn't see coming.
- And I'm a total sucker for that thing where he stands behind her and teaches her. In what might have been a nod to #metoo, he asks her permission first.
- LOL at "This, she thought, is so much better than the video!"
- Hm...to let the fish go you still have to take it off the hook. At least I hope they do. It would be really cruel to let it go with the hook still in its mouth.
- When he accuses her of showing off, I just happy-sigh. What a charmer.
- Perfect ending. Bravo, Mary Ann.
Photo by Loren Kerns via Flickr CC license
4 comments:
Oh, Kate, I finally got three WW magazines at the same time. After reading them, this story made it worth the wait. I loved, loved, loved it. The setting to know the characters, the romance, the twist, the ending. All I can say is Wow! this was the prefect story. Well done, Mary Ann.
Excellent story. One of those worth studying to see how it was done!
Thank you for the kind comments! I had fun writing this story and the title was all mine! (I hardly ever think of such clever ones!) And thank you Kate, for your excellent blog on all the stories you review. And, just for your own interest, I do know that you have to get the hook off the fish to release him. Or at least you should! They changed up some words there. Here's what I wrote:
Tom laughed and held her line. “It’s not my favorite part either,” he said and smoothly released the fish back into the river.
I wanted the hero to take her feelings seriously, and show that he was good at putting the fish back, too!
I should just say, the editors just added the word "instead," to the end of her line. She said, in my version, "...can we let him go?" and they added, "...can we let him go instead?" so maybe it seemed to some folks that he would still be on the hook, (because she hadn't learned that part) but they'd let him go. It wasn't a big deal, but I can see how it read differently. I'm happy it was chosen and this story wasn't otherwise changed up very much!
Thank you to everyone who liked it. It really made my day!
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