This small collection of three love stories is not the usual fare offered by romance writers. There's no 'LURVE'. No one-glance-across-a-crowded-room fatal attractions. No rippling abs. No unnaturally-coloured emerald green or purple eyes. No fancy undies getting ripped off.
These stories are about actual love, real love. The kind that can actually happen, with rare good fortune and a lot of work, between grown-up men and women. Each in its own way, the stories celebrate the mature, adult love between married people.
Readers of Anselmo's work will have come to expect smooth competence, deft plot construction and textured, believable characters, so I shan't say anything about the technical aspects of the work other than to remark that it's well up to his usual standard. But the adventurousness of these stories in a culture that's come to equate 'romance' with cheap porn raises a white flag of excellence amid a bloody battlefield of crud that I found utterly inspiring.
These stories are about actual love, real love. The kind that can actually happen, with rare good fortune and a lot of work, between grown-up men and women. Each in its own way, the stories celebrate the mature, adult love between married people.
Readers of Anselmo's work will have come to expect smooth competence, deft plot construction and textured, believable characters, so I shan't say anything about the technical aspects of the work other than to remark that it's well up to his usual standard. But the adventurousness of these stories in a culture that's come to equate 'romance' with cheap porn raises a white flag of excellence amid a bloody battlefield of crud that I found utterly inspiring.
Labors of Love is available on AMAZON.
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