Liquid Silver Books, $4.99, ISBN 978-1-62210-225-9
Sci-fi Romance, 2015
Nightfall is the fourth book in Denise A Agnew’s series The Wasteland Trilogy. Yes, it’s book four of a trilogy – I think someone forgot to change the name of the series, heh. Like the previous stories in the series, this one takes place in an America after a cataclysmic volcanic eruption killed many people and changed the rest of the world.
For Patty Reynolds, her life gains back some semblance of normalcy after she manages to reopen her bakery. Alexander “The Great” Graham is primarily the hot action man that helped her get her store back in order after the looters hit it a while back. He has become a regular customer since then, isn’t that sweet. He has an ulterior motive, of course. You think the guy on the cover gets to keep all those abs by gorging endlessly on sweet cakes? He’s sweet on her, duh. Fortunately, her ex decides to show up to move along: he warns her that his enemies are out to get Patty in order to strike at him. Patty isn’t sure that she can believe him, but Alexander decides to get Patty to stay with him in the meantime, for protection.
These two are soon having sex – Alexander and Patty, duh, not any other combination – and then the threat strikes and is done away with, the end.
This is very readable and both characters are decent. I believe my biggest disappointment with Nightfall is how unsatisfying and short it feels. It’s not a short story, it just feels like one, because the author skips much of the relationship build-up process by rushing the characters into bed and that’s it, get rid of the bad stuff next, and we’re all done, the exit is over there. It’s a shame. Alexander is 49, and Patty is not that young as well, so this is a rare story with older characters. But the story doesn’t do these characters much justice; it turns them into any stock characters in a half-baked tale that emphasizes sex over substance. The guy on the cover has some scary abs, but that cover art is probably the, er, most meaty thing about this story.
| 
