BOOK REVIEW: MYSTERY ROAD BY KEVIN LUCIA

There is raw emotion at work here and both stories, despite their brevity, encompass feelings of wonder, confusion, love, and sadness all beautifully portrayed on the page. I can’t help but feel that Kevin Lucia has drawn heavily from his own past, and that lends credence and heft to the impact of these tales.

Mystery Road (2022) By: Kevin Lucia

Available at AMAZON
ISBN-10: 1587678292
ISBN-13: 978-1587678292
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A Book Review by: Mark Walker

When one of the two short stories in this volume from Kevin Lucia includes praise from Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Darling which I recently read, reviewed, and enjoyed, you know you have a fairly decent seal of approval for your next read.

I love reading short stories, and not just because they are short and easy to fit into a busy life, but because there is often a freedom you don’t necessarily get with a novel that allows you to play around with structure and rhythm and not worry so much about the conventions that people expect with longer form stories and films.
That’s not trying to sound pretentious, but it is sometimes just cool to be told a story, something you might hear around a campfire without context or explanation, just a tale to hear and revel in. It is often more about the writing on the page and the images created than the story itself.

Mystery Road and the “bonus” A Night at Old Webb did exactly this for me. Two short stories about Kevin Ellison and his experiences as a young man and growing into an adult. In Mystery Road he stumbles across a hidden track that leads him down a path that explores the past and affects his relationships in the future, while, in Old Webb, a slightly older Kevin recalls his experiences with an equally mysterious girl who creates a deep impression on him that lasts long into adulthood.

When you read these shorts, I suspect you will figure out where each tale is going before you reach the end but, as I said, it isn’t necessarily about the story itself, but the emotions that the telling of that tale provokes. While the stories may not “surprise” you, that is not what they are about, it’s what’s going on “between the lines” which is important.

Both Mystery Road and Old Webb revolve around themes of coming of age and growing up, of learning who you are and what you want to be. They provoke feelings of nostalgia for the past and explore the power of relationships. There is raw emotion at work here and both stories, despite their brevity, encompass feelings of wonder, confusion, love, and sadness all beautifully portrayed on the page. I can’t help but feel that Kevin Lucia has drawn heavily from his own past, and that lends credence and heft to the impact of these tales.

However short they may be, I enjoyed both stories and would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good tale, well told. I couldn’t help feeling that these were stories I could easily imagine characters in a scene from a Stephen King novel sitting around and recounting to each other while snowed in at an abandoned ski-lodge or on a camping trip that was soon to go horribly wrong.

Short, sweet, and definitely recommended.

Mystery Road (2022) By: Kevin Lucia

Two Kevin Ellison Stories in One!

Mystery Road

Choices are like roads, taking us to destinations both planned and unexpected, but lofty thoughts like that are of no concern to young Kevin Ellison, who only cares about his dreams of basketball glory.

One day, however, while riding his bicycle to shoot baskets with his best friend, he comes across a side-road he doesn't recognize, curving away into the woods. Intrigued, he rides down this unmarked road and encounters something both wonderful and quietly terrible, something that forever changes his understanding of the world...

A Night at Old Webb

Old Webb, an abandoned grammar school just outside Clifton Heights, is the place to be late summer nights in Webb County. A gathering place for friends to be themselves, away from grownups who have forgotten what it means to be young and free.

The summer of 1992, Kevin Ellison spent his Saturday nights there like everyone else. Everything was running according to plan: a college basketball scholarship, school, all the things everyone expected of him.
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Then he met a girl named Michelle Titchner, and everything changed...

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