Ami's Hoard

2.5 stars

Penny Hudson has an upcoming novel this month, whose blurb is quite intriguing for me. Because of that, I decided to see if I would enjoy her writing by reading this debut short story of hers, released last year. Unfortunately, this is another sample of a short story where … well, length became the major weakness. I love short stories … I read them quite a lot, actually. However, there are few themes (or plots) that require more than 20.000 words in order to give maximum impact on me.

Because of the length, I didn’t feel like I understand enough on what drew Alex and Martin together. Yes, they were ‘bonding’ when Martin was gravely wounded after a grizzly attacked them, but even those scenes were too short – and not quite that intimate – for me to believe that they were attracted with one another. Which was quite frustrating a let-down because Hudson had a good set-up here. Alex and Martin were practically enemies – with Alex a veteran park ranger who took his job seriously and Martin was an obnoxious stubborn environmentalist. “Enemies-to-lovers” is a difficult trope for me to love because I need to believe in the progress and this one didn’t have that. By the end of this short story, I still felt detached with both men and I didn’t feel like I knew them very well to care.

I did think that Hudson was able to describe the horror and the seriousness of bear attacks. One scene also made me chuckling a bit – think ‘dream humping’. I think this is another short story that will be better if expanded in order to explore the potential of the relationship because right now, sadly, all I could come up with for this story was “MEH”. It didn’t diminish my intrigue to try her next book though. I just hope with her novel, Hudson will have a better space for engaging plot and characters.