Kevin Brennan’s new book Occasional Soulmates launches today and I was very pleased to read this wonderful book. Here is my review (I know, I know I usually don’t do reviews on my blog, but this one is too good to pass up. You can get it  HERE.

Occasional Soulmates  by Kevin Brennan is the second book by this author I have read. The first is Yesterday Road a literary journey of a lifetime which I thoroughly enjoyed. Occasional Soulmates is also a literary masterpiece which I enjoyed even more. This is a story of Sarah a thirty-nine-year-old emergency room doctor who having been divorced is somewhat skeptical of entering another relationship. It is not because of being hurt or disillusioned about the first, but more about the idea of involvement and complications in her life. Her best friend and coach Jules has enough caution about relationships to sink any that could come along. On top of her personal life, Sarah has a mother who is continually pushing her to resume a relationship with her well off sister. The sister made a mistake in Sarah’s mind that she can not forgive or forget. Such a situation keeps Sarah from re-establishing the broken relationship. When the reader meets Ella, the sister there is no doubt Sarah is totally within her rights in not wanting to have anything to do with her.

The last two characters who play a major role in the story are Dylan and Steve. Dylan is an architect and because of his handsomeness and British wit, Sarah falls for him like a ton of bricks. Of course, in the ensuing relationship Jules is a metaphorical representative of the Greek chorus in the classic tragedies continually warning Sarah of the pitfalls of love. Steve is Dylan’s brother and is forced to play a role of truth teller as far as his brother’s activities are concerned. He continually puts his foot in his mouth by giving away family secrets that Dylan wants to be kept quiet.

As I said in the opening paragraph, I enjoyed this book very much. The first item which pleased me to no end is the author chose the first person narrative. This is a personal favorite point of view since it allows the reader to be part of the action from a front-row seat. The narrator has taken the reader into confidence and is sharing personal thoughts about the action. Mr. Brennan has an excellent command of the writer’s craft and handles this point of view deftly and with great skill. The second item is the way the story is constructed. There is a tongue in cheek reference to a relationship novel that the reader comes to believe Sarah is writing. We do come to the point that the reference is more or less rhetorical, but does provide a tight framework for the unfolding story. The third item is the way in which Mr. Brennan writes. He has a magical quality of taking a very few words and exploding those minimal choices into magnificent descriptions. He never slows the plot with tedious overwriting and seems to be almost clairvoyant to the point when the reader wants to move on. The fourth item is the use of dialog the way it should be used. He has few tags to identify who is talking and the miraculous thing is the reader has no question of who said what to whom. The fifth is the fact that Mr. Brennan decided to take on the task of telling the story as a female narrator. I admire his bravery and believe (although I’m not a female) he got it right. It could be he knows some females who could give him advice or he is a god which I suspect.

I liked a lot of other things about Occasional Soulmates   including; character development, scene construction and the final resolution of the conflict Mr. Brennan so richly developed.

This is a book which everyone who wants to enjoy a well told and masterfully constructed contemporary literary tale should pick up. For anyone who wants to be a writer, this book can provide a premier example of how to do it right.