"Sorrows End" by Sandman (sandman@bitsmart.com) Guest review by Anne747 (Anon747@aol.com)

I'm almost tempted to use the author's own introduction to tell you what the story is about. In fact, his own summary is, 'A plane crash forces a hermit to share his cabin for a long arctic winter with two women.' Now that might give a misleading idea of what the story is about; however, the author goes a little further and says:

"Considering that I had the chance to explore incest, pregnant sex, and an interesting threesome, the story and characters evolved in a very tame manner. I think I am probably as surprised as anyone that what sprang forth was a rather quaint love story with nothing even remotely approaching taboo. This is a story yes, there's sex in it yes, but sex isn't the end all and be all of this tale."

And he's right. What we have here is a sweet romantic tale that deals far more with two people falling in love than anything else. The only change I might suggest is a section at the beginning of the lovemaking scene. We almost slip back into the 'sex story' mode when she notes his 'well sized organ' and his hands roam across her 'her ample breasts'. Up until this point it has been an emotional piece. These two lines are very close and tend to pull you back to a 'physical' impression. The characters have a very real feel to them, this almost brings them back to the usual celluloid feel of sex story characters.

Now, I'm not a romantic at heart. I normally wouldn't pick them to read. Also, I might have preferred a slightly different ending, but this is just a personal thing. Overall, this is a well-written, poignant story, and I did enjoy it. I was going to knock a point off on the personal appeal simply because romance pieces aren't my thing, but looking back at some of the other reviews I've done I decided that wasn't fair. Interesting note: after 29 reviews - this is the first straight 10s review I've given.