Title: Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories
Author: Nancy Christie
Genre: Literary Fiction / Short Story Collection
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
There are some people who, whether by accident or design, find themselves traveling left of center. Unable or unwilling to seize control over their lives, they allow fate to dictate the path they take—often with disastrous results.
TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER AND OTHER STORIES details characters in life situations for which they are emotionally or mentally unprepared. Their methods of coping range from the passive (“The Healer”) and the aggressive (“The Clock”) to the humorous (“Traveling Left of Center”) and hopeful (“Skating on Thin Ice”).
The eighteen stories in TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER AND OTHER STORIES depict those types of situations, from the close calls to the disastrous. Not all the stories have happy endings—like life, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t.
In these stories, the characters’ choices—or non-choices—are their own. But the outcomes may not be what they anticipated or desired.
Will they have time to correct their course or will they crash?
In Traveling Left of Center, author Nancy Christie introduces the reader to a remarkable collection of short stories about people who, for some reason, find themselves traveling left of center. Each character has to deal with a situation for which they’re not prepared, and this book truly shows humans at their most vulnerable, and sometimes at their most powerful when they show true strength.
Some of the stories were emotionally heavy, and others were lighter, but they all did paint flawed characters, and the author did an incredible job portraying all characters’ emotions, from lonelinss to frustration to sadness. Often in short stories I find it hard to connect to the characters since we share little page time with them, but I had no such issues here.
The writing was excellent, and the author had no trouble transporting the reader into the world of these characters. I really enjoyed this collection of quality work, and look forward to reading more books by this author in the future.
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