Separation Anxiety

MYSTERY:  Curtain Taylor (Drape to her friends), entered college at the age of 16 and is now working on her PhD. She loves living in Ann Arbor with her sorority sisters, who accepted her even at her young age. Now, however, everyone is moving on with their lives. While planning her wedding and working on her PhD, Curtain helps her friends find housing in Chicago, where a friend’s mom had lived previously. Meeting the landlord Salvatore Bianco causes all kinds of foreign feelings in Drape. Her lack of a father brings up an attraction that she doesn’t quite understand. Salvatore’s feelings are quite the opposite, bordering on stalkerish…and is he responsible when her friends start disappearing?

Ms. Federbush has an interesting take on college life with her quirky characters. Unfortunately this story suffers from the tell vs. show, and doesn’t have a whole lot of depth. There are too many characters, and too many subplots to keep track of. The flow is the biggest problem and all the subplots are thrown in together and one is never quite sure what is going on. Also, the villain is figured out pretty much right after they are introduced into the story. Religion plays a big role in this story, but doesn’t really fit in, as scripture is added at rather odd times and throughout the whole book. It also seems that this story is from a time well past, as opposed to being in contemporary times. The potential is there - separate the subplots, add a bit of depth and voila! a 5- star tale.

Lynne Bryant