- Recommended Age Range: 12 and up
- Formats: E-Book
- Approx. Length: 6,644 Words
A humorously poignant Cinderfella tale about a spooky carnival and a misfit who discovers the truth behind his sorry circumstances.
A young man feels trapped in a family where there is no common ground. He serves them but does not share a sense of belonging with the uncouth clan. His sole friend is a cockroach. Books have provided an escape, sustaining him through a difficult childhood. Can he ever leave this den of thieves and hooligans, or is he doomed to remain one of them yet apart? Nuance is a grim fairytalish horror story about wanting to be someone else, wishing for a new identity, a different path in life.
This short story is currently being enhanced for a new E-Book version!
Samples
“THEY WERE FREAKS. They were also his family. Who incidentally thought he was the oddball, the abnormal one. Perhaps due to his lot as the youngest of six brothers. The fact that his noggin had an oval design where the rest were blockheads.”
Five sinister seething goons were visible invading, toting weapons of destruction. They fanned like wolves along the fairway, skulked amid attractions in degrees of disrepair, sniffed between dilapidated ticket and refreshment stands, vacant test-your-skill arcades.
~ from Nuance
THEY WERE FREAKS. They were also his family. Who incidentally thought he was the oddball, the abnormal one. Perhaps due to his lot as the youngest of six brothers. The fact that his noggin had an oval design where the rest were blockheads. His sandy hair was kinked when theirs was straight. His eyes blue-gray, while the others reflected the sapphire-emerald of the sea.
Such differences, these subtle variations as a whole seemed slight, the moderate distinctions within a bloodline. But it was enough to set him apart, to make him feel separate and be treated as if he didn’t belong. Oh, they bullied him, they tormented him like big brothers. Maybe a trifle too often and enthusiastic.
He served as their pawn, their Cinderfella. In seeking acceptance or to placate the mob, the stupe catered and fetched at the whim of tyrants, never appreciated, merely criticized and exploited. Naïve endeavors to order a chaotic unruly environment were primarily in vain, for his brothers trashed and disheveled faster than he could shovel and sort.
Clarence Osman secretly plotted to run away. Go over the wall. Dig for daylight. Bust loose, click heels, whatever it took to escape this dreary colorized version of Hell. He couldn’t tolerate his shiftless clan, the slacker brood he had been forced to abide since he could recall. Clarence’s personal theory of relativity was that genes must break down in every sixth son, alter barbarian glands to ordinary cells and vice versa. He was proof.
It certainly cleared up a few discrepancies.
Praise
“This was a complex story which I had trouble reading and enjoying the first time, but when read over again I romped through it!!”
“This was a complex story which I had trouble reading and enjoying the first time, but when read over again I romped through it!! Lori has such complex ways of describing characters that you have trouble keeping track of who is who (my only complaint!) leaving me a little bamboozled!
However, how can you not love carnival freaks & ghosties as a topic! My favourite line was “nature, nurture, adopted, abducted what’s the difference!” . . . made me giggle!”
(From a review for CHOCOLATE-COVERED EYES)
Vix Kirkpatrick
THE FLUFFY RED FOX REVIEW; Amazon U.K. Review
♥
“Nuance — for some reason, I just couldn’t get into this tale. Here is where Ms. Lopez’s use of words hurt her in my opinion. This had the makings of a gritty story. However, she let her prose style that works so well in her poetry get in the way. Too many (as my college writing teacher used to call them…and probably still does) five-dollar words. You don’t need masticate when chew works just as well. The word choice took the edge off the story and I simply could not immerse myself in it.”
(From a review for CHOCOLATE-COVERED EYES)
TW Brown
MAY-DECEMBER PUBLICATIONS; Smashwords and Amazon Reviews
♥
“In a language usually reserved for poetry, our second candy of horror, NUANCE, places the “Normal” within the freaks and fiends of a carnival, the ever reliable symbol for the life of a gypsy, or transitory existence. The governing of a sideshow life is established by the carnies, and thus we have a microcosm of a city. Even the dreams of one boy reflect the hopes of such a morose existence: “The only chance of salvation was to believe in a boy who could fly, traverse walls, render magical feats.” Within the existence of the noncorformist life, dreams are your only salvation and the carrot on the stick that death proudly holds up for you. The fantastic in normalcy is that we all share the same fate.”
(From a review for CHOCOLATE-COVERED EYES)
Anthony Servante
THE BLACK GLOVE; SERVANTE OF DARKNESS
♥
“NUANCE, I think, is the story of the human ability to rise above it all. With spectral assistance or on our own, we triumph just as Clarence — errr — Clark did.”
