Book Review – Postscript by Barbara Avon

Kind of an auspicious day for a book review. I never had much family drama over the holidays, but I do know of people whose families were, shall we say, dysfunctional. So, when your drunk uncle is ranting and screaming racist epithets at the mashed potatoes and you desperately need an escape hatch, turn to a good book. Speaking of which, how about a timeless romance for your Thanksgiving pleasure?

There’s this theory out there that states that love knows no boundaries. Distance, time, acceleration, mass so dense not even light can escape, whatever. No boundaries for love. Or, at the very least, love chooses to ignore those boundaries in favor of its desires. At this point, you might be thinking, “Hey, quantum physics! I love quantum physics!” and maybe you’d be right.

Avon’s Postscript is a tough book to review because it comes with a twist that takes it from the standard “Boy and girl meet and fall in love and then some stuff happens but it all works out in the end and they wind up having crazy monkey sex on the swing set in the park” and turns it into something more magical. Not magic as in pulling rabbits out of hats, more like magical in the way things are not always as they seem but really they are it’s just that you’ve been seeing them wrong.

Anyway, I won’t give away the twist. Not that the book would be any worse if you knew the twist, it’s just that the twist is like icing on the cake. Or crazy monkey sex in swing sets if that’s more your thing. No judgment here.

So, you’ve got a couple of people – both broken in different ways – but trying hard to fix themselves. Piece their lives and psyches back together after stumbling through that trauma-inducing thing we call life. They’re not bad people, not in the sense of the truly vile, they’re just hurt and rough around the edges. And a little prickly. But, frankly, we all get prickly sometimes and being prickly can just mean that little poke on the finger that calmly says, “hands off for now, bub”.

The characters are fleshed out enough to make them interesting and compelling and you generally feel for them, but the real star of the story is the story itself. Avon unfolds things gently with the deft fingers of an origami master. Little hints here and there. Whispers in the back of your head that make you think there’s no way that could happen. But not only does it happen, it happens in a way you don’t even see coming.

It’s part romance and part ghost story and overall a lot of fun with an absolutely perfect ending.

“In the Fall of 1985, Jameson Brooks spends his days working for Frank’s Moving. At night, he attempts to fill the void of an empty heart with one-night stands, fueled by alcoholic binges. Lina is a dancer, and a lonely spirit. She isn’t interested in the advances of the handsome, yet rough bachelor that lives above her. Her demons still follow her. Her abusive husband’s ghost lingers, along with that of a very shady newspaper editor. When Lina disappears, love fuels James’ drive to discover the truth by using the clue hidden in the note he finds underneath his door. “Postscript” is a ghost story, a love story, and a story that will make you believe. It includes horror elements and flashbacks to the early 1900s in Prohibition Canada.”