tone Lake was an odd book sent to me by a friend (you want to challenge me, Boy? Think you can send me books and not get ones in return? Well, we’ll see about that). When I first got it, I frowned at the cover, frowned at the back, and thought “Why is this guy sending me chick-lit?”

So Jon (See, chick-lit) is a dude who lost his company to his shitty best friend. Most of his time is spent working for free. Most of his money goes to his blubbery lazy mom. He’s divorced – and his ex hooked up with Mr. Shitty. So Jon lives the country-western song life – out in a cabin in the woods (with an outhouse) – just a quiet life with him and his truck and his books. Nothing is going to change for Jon.

Until he rear-ends Morgan, a troubled rich girl (all the rich folk live around the lake – just like those North Carolina old-rich enclaves) who is hanging around her parent’s house and dreading her upcoming wedding to a nice quiet lawyer. And she’s got her own dark past, one her parents sneer at her over. Yeah, so everything’s screwed up.

And Jon and Morgan fall in love, the quiet hero and the crippled sparrow. Tenderness ensues. Romance blossoms. But what can they do? Their lives are fixed. Will they just pass in the night? How will love win out? Will there be a happy ending?

Truthfully? I was about to drop it. It was just a little too syrupy. Maybe my sister would like it.

And then the story wrenched into a turn I did not see coming.

Bravo!

I really love, as a reader, when writers break from standard melodramatic crap that most stories follow. It’s refreshing to find one’s bookmark moving through uncharted territory. Another couple of pages and I might have bailed. So off we went in a new direction, just setting things in a totally unexpected way. Not quite chick-lit, not by the end. And, as they say, “a long way to get to the punchline” but it was enjoyable all the same.

If you like romance and you like interesting off-the-wall twists, you’ll love Stone Lake.

>>>I CAN’T SAY FIRE AND BRONZE WAS UNEXPECTED – I KILLED THE HEROINE IN THE FIRST SENTENCE. BUT HOW WE GET TO THAT POINT, THAT’S THE INTERESTING BIT. BUY IT OFF THIS LINK AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!<<<