Flowers in December

Flowers in December by Jane Suen   140 pages

I felt a little rooked when I saw on Amazon that Jane Suen’s short work was listed as 140 pages. In actuality, the story itself is only 113 pages.

This is the story of losing a parent and finding yourself. Thirty-eight-year-old Connor Norton lives in the “city,” which I took to be New York, but it could have been any city in the U.S. He isn’t married, has a demanding career that requires him to work a minimum of sixty hours a week.  He likes it, but he’s no longer in love with it.  He goes back home to Rocky Flats as little as he, mostly on the obligatory holidays.

Now his mother has died. He is instant regretful that he didn’t spend more time with her. But upon his arrival back in his hometown, Connor begins to enjoy the slow pace of life. He becomes instant friends with his mother’s neighbor, the girl at the flower shop, and the mortician and his daughter. He even falls in love with Tom, his mom’s orange tabby.

Flowers in December has great bones. Unfortunately, it has poor execution. I would say to the author, “Keep it up. You have talent. You just need to work at it more before you publish your next work.” Suen overuses everyone’s names in paragraphs and often the same sentence is repeated within a paragraph just worded differently or turned around  It’s for these reasons that I give Flowers in December receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.