Book Reviews

Book Blurb

The conflict between work and home life has never been greater for Eric Hopkins -- trying to make a better life for his children, Eric takes a job with high travel, leaving him hundreds of miles away when his family needs him the most. For Temple Richardson, local employment and more time at home means dealing with school officials, toddler mishaps, and sick dogs, all while trying to plan the perfect birthday for his spouse. 

When one mishap leads to another and the whole day comes tumbling down, can these two very different men get their lives, and their priorities, straight? Or will cascading failure finally rip them apart?

 

This story is also included in Family Time Anthology.

 

Book Review

According to the dictionary, “A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts. Such a failure may happen in many types of systems, including power transmission, computer networking, finance, human bodily systems, and bridges.” This story takes a look at such a failure in yet another possible "system"—that of a family.

Temple is the partner at home with the children, the one who goes through catastrophe after catastrophe, a situation anyone who is a parent will recognize as an example of that day, or in this case, that week. Their son is having a difficult time at school, he has a flat tire leading to the car needing towing, then the dog eats something he shouldn’t have, and their three-year-old daughter decides to “help” bake a birthday cake. What a mess!

Eric is away on business and watches it all from afar, but it affects him just as badly. Possibly more, because he isn’t there to support Temple, and that gets to him. The conflict between needing to make a living and wanting to be at home almost tears him apart. The problem is that he only took this job because it pays better, and he didn’t think the high travel percentage would be this bad. With Temple facing a meltdown at home, Eric knows there is only one thing he can do.  He is honest enough with himself to go through with it, and I really admired that about him.

If you have ever felt your family spin out of control (or if you want to know what that feels like), if two men struggling to be parents and finding their very own solution sounds like an interesting story, and if you’re looking for a story that has struggling parents, disaster-prone kids, and a very loving relationship, then you will probably like this short story.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. The anthology this short story was published in has been provided by Torquere Press for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Short Story, 35 pages/9300 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	17-June-2015
Price	$2.49 ebook
Buy Link	http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=79_93&products_id=4420