Customer Reviews

Love at first sight (A Digital Short)

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4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most people who pick up Zandri's "Love at First Sight" short story will be fans of his crime fiction. They'll be expecting a certain amount of murder, mayhem and mischief. This short story has none of those things. But you know what? You're going to enjoy it anyway.

The story chronicles a U.S. soldier's attempt to regain his sight after going blind. A traumatic incident in Afghanistan left him with a healthy dose of PTSD, which triggered his blindness. He and his fiance spend a vacation in Italy to relax. Their rocky relationship must be fixed before his eyesight is restored.

Much of the story takes place inside the soldier's mind. He deconstructs his life, his relationship and his decisions. This leaves the reader in a similar state of blindness, but not in a bad way. The story unfolds the same way the soldier perceives the world: memories flashing in and out of mind, building a tapestry that guides the reader.

That tapestry is at times gripping, other times amusing and always engaging. This short read provided all the elements of a longer work. I get the feeling this is testing the waters before Zandri commits to leaving crime fiction for a novel or two. If he does, readers should be in for a treat.

When a loved one suffers a physical injury that can be seen and felt, we rally around. Disfigurement we can understand. But the things we cannot see or touch - things like blindness, disabilities but with the only outward signs in the form of a person's difficulty in adapting to his or her environment...not so much. When you add in the stigma of a psychological disorder as the cause for the blindness, you have a recipe for disconnectedness between loved ones.

Mr. Zandri not only portrays the physical limitations of being blind in a sublime fashion, but also manages to convey the guilt that led to the blindness as a festering wound that the reader will feel, and the frustration of his "sig other" - though we never see a word from her point of view - is tangible. The sense of disconnection between them is complete and will frustrate the reader the same way it frustrates the characters. In the end, in life, it all comes down to the click of understanding what we want most.

I've often claimed Vincent Zandri is the missiour of Noir. Noir being French for dark. And while this is no fairy tale it is most definitely a romance. Zandri hit the Amazon best seller list before in romantic suspense with The Remains The Remains purely by accident. Now that he purposely wrote a love story I'm floored at the adaptability of this author. The characters are complex with a blind marine and his fiance' trying to rekindle a love and allow the soldier to heal in Venice. Apparently Venice in the winter rains a lot. Expressed mostly from the soldiers POV Zandri shows he's an author that can literally assume his characters identities. My only complaint is that this was too short. However, the door was left wide open for a sequel and the rumor is that a potential sequel is a full length novel.

Many of you know that Vincent Zandri writes suspenseful, thrilling novels. I was super excited to learn that he took a turn with the romance realm and wrote a short story on it. I was pleased with what I read! While I normally expect twists and turns at every angle from a Zandri novel, this short story still left me in awe.

This short story is a fast read, and will hook you from the start. It's a story filled with the aftermath of war, the devastation it can reek on one's character, and the consequences that sometimes have to be paid. But, mixed in with that, it's about finding oneself in the midst of tragedy. Focused on the blindness that can occur when someone witnesses a tragedy beyond belief, this story centers on coming to terms with actions,finding out what love truly means by standing by someone you love, and 'seeing' the simplest things in life that we tend to take for granted.

If you are looking for a fast paced, enjoyable quick read to pass that wait in the doctor's office, or carpool line, grab a copy of another fantabulous Zandri work. You'll be blown away at his ability to write in another genre other than his thrilling suspense. Four Book worthy and highly recommended! Great job, Vincent!

This review originated at Reviews By Molly in part with a blog tour.

Nick is a soldier who served in Afghanistan. He's on medical leave because a traumatic event left him suffering from inexplicable and totally random bouts of temporary blindness. The doctors hope that spending time with his significant other, Margo might help cure it since Nick has been away from her for over a year. Together, they try to rekindle their love in spite of the hand that fate has given them.

If you've read Vincent Zandri's previous work, you know that he is one of the masters of portraying emotion. Since he writes in first person, the reader is hearing what Nick thinks and feeling what he feels. At the same time though, we are seeing the frustration in his significant other as she struggles to deal with Nick's blindness as best she can. She is upset because she doesn't understand what Nick is going through and she's having a hard time gauging how to test him. He's getting frustrated because he feels she's being too easy on him and this makes them both question everything. Margo, wondering if she can handle all of the odd things that Nick does to push himself and the stares it gains. While Nick is feeling like his fiancée doesn't love him anymore because he has changed. All of it comes together to show that while Nick isn't in Afghanistan anymore, he's still waging a war. Will that war be won? I don't know, but I think we start to see some steps here and I would certainly love to see more of this genre from Vincent Zandri.

Thank you to Vincent Zandri for the review copy. It in no way influenced my review.

This was a wonderfully written short about what a couple must go through to reconnect after a tour in Afghanistan changes an Army officer.

The short is written from the officer's point of view and demonstrates the mindset of a wounded soldier trying to come to grips with not only his injury (perceived or otherwise) and what his life is like now, the guilt over his order to bomb an Afghan village but also dealing with the changes in his significant other. It's not until he's able to deal with all those that he's able to remember everything that he loved and why.

An interesting novella, very well written since the protagonist is blind and dealing with trauma. Lots of emotional depth here also due to the character's problems - so less description of Venice, and far more of a layered character study. I usually dislike present tense writing, but Zandri has a firm handle on that and an experienced literary style.

Reviewed for Love At First Sight Blog Tour

"I would rather have eyes that cannot see; ears that cannot hear; lips that cannot speak, than a heart that cannot love"
- by Robert Tizon -

3.5 stars. I rounded up to 4 stars since the prose is really beautiful.

<...>I could see Margo in imagination, the way I remembered her. I would listen for the sound of her breathing, and the beating of her heart. I would try and remember the way it was for us before the war. And get this: seeing was never as kind to me as I thought. Until I lost the ability to count on my eyes I didn't know how nice touching could really be. I never listened to Margo before. Never listened for her short rapid breaths, never truly smelled her hair, never really touched her tender skin. I never took the time to notice. Never took the time to feel.<...>

While on patrol, Nick suddenly became blinded. The doctors couldn't figure out exactly what happened to his head. The blindness came and went of its own free will. So did the coma-like symptoms. His MRIs all proved negative for brain tumors or possible aneurisms. He was normal, but not normal. They thought a relaxing vacation might do him some good. That's why Nick and Margo are spending some time in Venice and are supposed to be getting re-acquainted after his tour in the Middle East.

Margo's trying to help Nick, at the same time she's struggling with his blindness. She is not sure if she can accept his handicap and she's feeling despondent. It's difficult for her and she needs time to process everything because she doesn't know what he's feeling and what he's seeing inside his head.

Nick hears lots of things these days since he began going in and out of blindness. Being blind is not so much having lost his vision as it is learning to see things in other ways. He has to rely on touching, smelling, listening. Nick has to learn how to feel all over again. He has not lost his memory, though. He ordered the airstrike on a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan and a dead toddler is haunting him. Yes, the memory can be cruel.
His war is over now and he has to get to know the man he has become. Nick and Margo learn because that is all they have together and they have a long way to go.

The best aspect of Love at First Sight is the author's prose. The novella is beautifully written! Love at First Sight is a very silent story. While reading it I got a good insight in Nick's mind and what he's feeling and thinking. Reading that novella is a rather good way to spend a cold winter evening curled up on your couch. You should light a few candles and reminisce a little bit. What is really important in life? Be grateful for what you have and make the best out of your life with what you've got!

My censure:
Even for a novella Love at First Sight is way too short. I can't really claim that I know Margo very well since the story is told from Nick's point of view in first person. Understandably everything revolves around Nick's state of mind, then again I wanted to know more about Margo's character. She wasn't developed enough for my liking. Of course the story was just too short to pull that off.

Love at First Sight was kindly provided by Bri Clark in behalf of the author Vincent Zandri

Next tour stop
1/23/2012 Feature and Interview with Vincent Zandri sarahballance.wordpress.com

www.vincentzandri.com

This was a quickie - the story itself maybe 15 pages. There was really no story. It was a snapshot of a day in the life of a wounded soldier sent to Venice with his fiancee for R&R. Because he had "hysterical" blindness, since they could not find any medical reason for his loss of sight, there were vivid descriptions of memories and the day in the rain at a sidewalk cafe. You could picture what Nick was "seeing" based on the wonderful descriptions given. The book itself was almost reminiscent to me of a Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm episode - a story based on nothing that took a half hour to tell plus got laughs. In this story there was no laughter - only darkness - from both his eyesight and the darkness he felt from being in the war and ordering the raid on the village and the seeming loss of love from his fiancee, Margo. Since I have not read other books by Zandri, but heard good things about his writing, I would give another of his books a try.

Love At First Sight is a unique and different look at an incredibly talented thriller author. Vincent Zandri has proven himself repeatedly with such thriller releases as Moonlight Falls and The Innocent, as well as the excellent psychological thriller The Remains. Now Mr. Zandri steps away from his comfort zone a bit and brings readers a delightful digital short of what life would be like after facing a tragedy and losing the gift of sight, as well as possibly losing the one that you love.

Often times people can be blind to what and who truly matters in the world around them. Perfect vision does not necessarily mean seeing perfectly.

When Nick is unexplainably blinded shortly after witnessing the fallout of an airstrike that he ordered on a Taliban stronghold, life takes a turn for the worse and he loses any sense of normalcy. His life becomes a darkened nightmare of sorts and his relationship with his fiance, Margo, is anything but stable. As a way to try and get their relationship back on track, Nick and Margo take a trip to Venice, a place of beauty and love. But can anything save and re-establish what they once had?

Love at First Sight is told in a lovely way that truly makes the reader feel as though they are in this exquisite place and feeling the tortures that Nick is going through. To be honest, there were times when I wanted to take something and smack both Nick and Margo upside the head for different reasons. Mostly, I was unhappy with the way Margo drew away from Nick because of his blindness. This was very frustrating to me and I wanted to yell at her to wake up and to move past this disability.

Though short, Love at First Sight is a very well developed, emotionally investing and descriptive story with characters who are very well brought to life. Vincent Zandri shows that his talent for creating stories is very diverse and no matter what genre he chooses to write in, his talent shines through. I greatly and truly enjoyed reading this story and look forward to future releases from Mr. Zandri - in various genres. I highly recommend Love at First Sight for anyone looking for an eye-opening story that will remain in both heart and mind long after the final word has been read.