Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Cookie-Cutter Romance by Mary Jo Young

from the September 4, 2017 issue

Tagline: Mark thought he had no time for love...then he met Kenzie!

Observations: At first, I thought this was another story about cookies and I wondered if Ms. Gaddis was going on a cookie story binge, but I soon found out I was wrong. LOL

I thought this particular meet cute was funny and novel--not something I'd seen before. There was also a quasi-matchmaker, his office manager, Mrs. Hendrix. I thought it was oddly formal that they referred to each other as Mrs. Hendrix and Mr. Osborne, but I went with it.

This story was unusual in another way. We saw more going on between Mrs. Hendrix and Mr. Osborne than we did between Mark and Kenzie. It didn't bother me. I still thought it was a cute story, but it went against my suggestion that you always spend a good deal of time showing the hero and heroine interacting. So, that just goes to show you, I don't know everything!

Photo Credit: Steve Moses (Flickr cc)

6 comments:

Sandy Smith said...

It was a very clever story. It seemed to work by having most of the conversation between Mr. Osborne and Mrs. Hendrix. I enjoyed the story.

Mary Jo said...

Mrs. Hendrix was twenty years his senior and had worked for Mark's father. I don't think that made it onto the printed page.

Tamara said...

Happy for you, M.J.

Pat said...

This is a great story example for knowing the rules and breaking them...well. I loved this story, the characters were wonderfully written.

Shyra said...

I liked this story. I live in one of those cookie cutter communities and my neighbor on the next street with the same house number and I are always getting each others mail and packages. Great meet cute idea.

Kate Willoughby said...

Yup. The mail mixup happens to me and my neighbor all the time, but not because our houses look alike. Once I even opened the envelope by mistake. That was embarrassing.