Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Short Story Review: The Zagzagel Diaries: Denial by Bryl R. Tyne





Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Untreed Reads Publishing
Pages: 9

Zagazagel is a guiding angel with a touch of devil in her. She has been assigned a hard case to watch over, a lady of the night named Deena, who is not only sexy, but also hard as nails. But that hardness is only a protective shell. Inside, she longs for the type of tender love only another woman can give. But of course, finding another woman is not so easy for someone who makes her living by sleeping with men.

In the course of a few fleeting hours, Zagazgel follows Deena from an altercation with a john, to her empty home. They have a rather touching and humorous confrontation, then Zagzagel leads her in the direction of salvation.

This is a well-told, gripping story. Bryl Tyne is a master at creating tension from the first sentence, and keeping his reader needing that next well-chosen word, sentence and page. His characters are real and captivating. They allow the reader to see something of themselves on the page. But what most charmed me about this story, was the way the author weaved humor into a sad and desperate situation.

All the fine qualities of this story listed above came as no surprise. I’ve read a couple of longer works by this author, so I knew I was in for a top-quality read going into it. I think Bryl has one of the finest voices in lgbt fiction. But what did surprise me was how much story Bryl packed into nine pages. I am left awed and grateful. It takes a huge talent to write short stories, and this author has proven he has what it takes.

This is a story I can highly recommend to anyone who enjoys fine writing and wonderful characters.

For more information about this author or story, go to http://bryltyne.com/
.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just finished the book And Thereby Hangs a Tale and felt like sharing what I thought. Many of these make you laugh and some bring tears. With due respect, some stories are downright predictable and is definitely not the best work of Jeffrey Archer.