Those Who Murder Together Stay Together...

“Never,” Emily said. “We’re going to be 
sisters for life.  Right, Carla?”
Carla nodded. “Special sisters. 
We’ll always be there for each other, 
no matter what happens.”
The three of us linked our pinkies  together, 
and I said, “We’re Pinky Sisters 
now and forever. Amen.”
“Amen,” Emily and Carla repeated. 
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Fireflies

By A. R. Alan

A. R. Alan has a unique talent of honing in on serious issues facing women and writing about them so sincerely and yet so humorously that you wind up alternatively laughing and crying... Fireflies is such a novel. The underlying activity of the three female characters, while horrendous, seems to serve as a necessary and justifiable activity--an everyday occurrence that happens as friends support each other...

"I watched her place a half dozen split logs in the crook

of her arm, then walk back to the fire and toss them in.

"The sparks look like fireflies," she said wistfully...

I stayed where I was, listening to the burning logs

clunk down on the embers below and holding my nose

against the disgusting aroma of charred wood and

Charlie, who, unaware of what was about to happen to him

had just had his finger and toes nails polished...

I watched as the flames shot into the black night..."

Perhaps it was because Mary's mother had died in their home. Mary "still pictured her asleep on the worn, cigarette-burned sofa with the half-filled glass of gin clutched in her hand and the empty liquor bottle lying on the stained carpet." Mary had not been sorry to lose her mother, because it meant that she had escaped--escaped from the torture and abuse she had received every time her father was out of town on business.

She had stayed with Carla's family for awhile after the fire, but then her father built a new home and came back with his wife and son... Then Mary had both her stepmother and her son to worry about...

But then again, both Emily and Carla had also murdered their husbands... Had it all been planned among the Pinky Sisters?

Meet Carla, who became addicted to sex after secretly watching her parents make love...

And Emily, who lived with the burden that she had begged to eat like the other kids, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for her lunch and leaving the top off the peanut butter. Her brother had eaten most of the jar, but had been allergic to peanuts, something none of the family could possibly have known...

While the bonfire blazed hot, to ensure all traces of Charlie were gone, the three friends, the three sisters, forced to stay awake to keep the fire going, come face to face with their past. Each shares her own story from her perspective. Sometimes a perception was wrong and one friend strikes out to defend herself. 

Sometimes a secret had been kept from the other two and now had exploded into anger and bitterness as understanding and forgiveness was sought... 

Exploring family relationships, intimacy and money issues, especially when the three started to burn money(!), are all issues that undoubtedly will touch each reader differently, but I can almost guarantee that you will be nudged by something that the Pinky Sisters explore during that bonfire.

This somewhat tongue-in-cheek flippant and sardonic farce has much to offer. Learn from it, wonder about it, but most of all enjoy it. Highly recommended.


Manuscript Provided 
By Author

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