Shine by BadSquirrel

You must have a special one, a number one, one that always come out at the top of any list you make, one that you can always use to compare others to…. well in the universe of (fan) fiction my all time favourite is “Rumors” by BadSquirrel. I know I already reviewed this fic on an earlier occasion so I won’t repeat my self, but - if you’ll have a little patience with me - I’ll introduce you to another BadSquirrel fic, that I found sort of captivating, even if it’s not going to make it to my list of favourites.

Patience - you and Maureen alike will need a bit of patience if you want to get to know Shine. If you ask how she came by that name, she will tell you, that she was born in San Francisco in the late 60's, and that she was actually one of the lucky ones! But Shine is in no-way anything like a free-spirit of the 60’s. Actually she is living in a sort of self chosen isolation – she lives alone, keeps her colleagues at the local radio station at an arms length, and she takes great care not to make any friends at all!

Persistence – is what Maureen - the county librarian - needs if she wants to have a chance of any sort of relationship with Shin, who has captivated Maureen with her voice through the local airwave. And luckily for us, Maureen is nothing but persistent in her work towards getting Shine to go out with her.

** SPOILER ALERT **Perfection is what you get if you have the patience to wait for it and the persistence to keep working at it. Maureen has both and if you sit tight, you’ll get a chance to see how Maureen slowly gets Shine to ease out of her reclusive lifestyle and back into the world and into Maureens arms, where it seems that she fits - just perfectly.

“Shine” is an unhurried alt romance with an easy to follow and classic storyline offering you a couple of enjoyable protagonists with a personal history to battle. It’s almost angst free, but with a little bit of drama well integrated and relevant to the storyline, and I found it to be well edited and with at good dialog.

I must warn you though; this story moves slow and evenly - no jumping around from one spectacular scene to the next - but if you are looking for romance, and you are one of the patient ones, you just have to lean back and let BadSquirrel take you through the lives of Maureen and Shine.