Life Can Be Lonely by Colin Kelly

[Cole Parker]

Yum!

Great post.  Only one thing missing.  Chili verde.  My favorite pork dish.

The Mexicans really know how to do pork!

C

PS - it wasn't me hijacking the thread this time!

[colinian]

Chili Verde is excellent. But a Guisado is an even better choice as a cold weather meal. Carnitas, green chilies, tomatillos, squash, cilantro, spices. Sometimes potatoes are included, too.

Colin 

[Camy]

I dunno. Wicked deeds afoot with murder most foul, and the author offers menu suggestions.

Not even the smallest hint to assuage the angst and fear this reader's feeling.

Best I hide in the corner until Wednesday, then.

 

[Cole Parker]

And hope Wednesday's chapter is a long one.

C

[Rutabaga]

1 hour ago, Camy said:

I dunno. Wicked deeds afoot with murder most foul, and the author offers menu suggestions.

Don't forget the sparks that are flying (if that's the right metaphor) between Kevin and Alex.  That seems like a positive development, despite Kevin's over-thinking outline of all the hazards of that happening.

R

[Camy]

On 6/24/2019 at 12:15 AM, Rutabaga said:

Don't forget the sparks that are flying (if that's the right metaphor) between Kevin and Alex.  That seems like a positive development, despite Kevin's over-thinking outline of all the hazards of that happening.

R

Sparks flying sounds like an imminent fire. The murderer at work again; a kitchen accident, or the result of friction?

It's almost Wednesday (it already is, here). Soon we'll know more!

[Camy]

7's up!

W00T!.. but... but the sooner I read it the longer there is to wait until 8. Oh dear. What to do?

[colinian]

1 hour ago, Camy said:

7's up!

W00T!.. but... but the sooner I read it the longer there is to wait until 8. Oh dear. What to do?

Life Can Be Lonely chapter 7 IS NOT UP YET! I'll be posting it in about a half-hour from now.

Remember, some of us still have to work for a living! I just got home from my BART ride from downtown San Francisco.

Colin 

 

[colinian]

Okay, CW has been updated and chapter 7 of Life Can Be Lonely is available. As is chapter 2 of Talo Segura's novel Milo.

Colin

[Rutabaga]

3 hours ago, Camy said:

7's up!

W00T!.. but... but the sooner I read it the longer there is to wait until 8. Oh dear. What to do?

Perhaps I should not mention that there are 15 chapters in all.

R

[Camy]

9 hours ago, Rutabaga said:

Perhaps I should not mention that there are 15 chapters in all.

R

Oh, I hate you all.... BART too. It's not rapid enough on Wednesdays.

[Rutabaga]

So it seems like Laura is being a good friend. 

How will Kevin do with his list of things that will be difficult for him to do?

Poor kid has an awful lot on his plate. 

R

[Camy]

4 hours ago, Rutabaga said:

Poor kid has an awful lot on his plate. 

R

He surely does. He's good with exams though, which is a boon I never suffered.

[Camy]

And... now it's Wednesday!

Here.

It's living in a time zone with an 8 hour delay that's the trouble. It's just not Cricket.

[Merkin]

Jiminy! Just give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide...

[Camy]

Chapter 8 was a goody!
 

[Camy]

1 hour ago, Merkin said:

Jiminy! Just give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide...

Thanks.

[Rutabaga]

“Oh my god, that’s so wonderful, Kevin. I just made the picture of you two the background on my phone. You two look so perfect together. Alex is really hot, but you know what? So are you. Really, really hot. Together you two could start a fire without any matches.”

Kevin laughed for a while. “I can’t wait to tell Alex that line about us starting a fire. I think that describes us perfectly.”

Guess that bears out my "sparks flying" comment earlier.

R

[colinian]

Thanks, R.

I like Eve's comment about starting a fire, too!

Colin 

[Rutabaga]

At last the FBI. 

R

[Camy]

On 7/25/2019 at 4:32 AM, Rutabaga said:

At last the FBI. 

R

Yep. The plot thickens! 👍

 

[Altimexis]

Oops, since the story is being posted first at CW, I posted my own review over at the CW forum, not realizing there was already a thread going here. There isn't much to add, though, as most of my concerns have already been expressed by everyone else. I would definitely note the following, however, as I would have thought the school would've been much more involved from the getgo:

From the beginning, something seems a little off, and it has nothing to do with the writing. The situation the protagonist finds himself in is horrible - so horrible that he completely shut down for seven weeks and didn't even bother to notify the school of what had happened. Perhaps I'll turn out to be wrong about this, but things can't all be what they seem. For one thing, why didn't the school reach out to him? Yes, Edison is supposed to be a big high school, but an entire family being killed in a home invasion should have been big news. Surely someone - a teacher, the principal or Kevin's counselor would have been aware of the situation. Why would the school have treated him as AWOL? I went to a high school with 3600 students in three grades, yet when my dad died of a heart attack, my U.S. History class sent me flowers. A couple of my teachers came to the funeral. The principal sent me a card. No one expected me or my mom to notify the school of my absence. A few days later, my counselor called to see how I was doing and to ask when I'd return. Colin has gone into exquisite detail with this story as he always does, so this is truly a glaring inconsistency that perhaps portends greater mystery ahead.

And as everyone else has already noted, the kid's in danger:

Kevin's family wasn't simply murdered - they were executed. Their killers marched them out of the house, lined them up in the back yard, had them lay face-down and then systematically shot each of them in the head. Startled robbers don't do that. Crazed druggies, high on PCP, don't do that. Kids undergoing a gang initiation don't do that. This was a carefully planned execution. The only reason Kevin wasn't killed supposedly was that he was away at a tennis match as I recall, so I think it's probably safe to assume that in some bizarre plot twist, Kevin wasn't the killer. But if this was an execution and if the perps are still at large as we've been lead to believe, why isn't Kevin in danger? Would the police really let him move back into his house so soon after the crime? Are they really that inept, or are things not as they seem?

One thing's for sure - or maybe not - the way Colin left the end of Chapter 11 seemed pretty ominous.

[Rutabaga]

Seems like way too much to wrap up in three more chapters at this pace.  Anticipate a sequel. 

R

[colinian]

I don't write sequels to my novels.

Colin 

[Altimexis]

Cole swore he'd never write a sequel, yet he wrote Another Summer in Georgia. Never say never.