Publication Date: February 27, 2013
In Love Unfeigned by Nadine C. Keels, Lorraine and Isaiah meet as children on the playground. As time passes and life’s experiences plague them, can these two people come together or are they destined to find love elsewhere?
The author, Nadine C. Keels, gave me a copy of this novella in exchange for my review.
Within the first few pages of Love Unfeigned, readers will confirm with Keel’s biography that she is a poet. There is an attention to language and its visual impact rarely seen with authors of any genre. There are musicality and emotion inherent in the words chosen that will pick a reader up and carry them through the story lending intensity to the movements of the characters through the timeline of the story. There is a hint of Toni Morrison who famously agonized for weeks over the house number in Love Unfeigned to come up with exactly the right number that would add to the story and lend credibility to the characters. Keel’s work has a similar sense of great thought and specific choices made. The nicknames “Braces” and “Itty Bitty” at the start are as much descriptors as names.
We watch the characters grow up together and while we only get little snippets of their lives, they are snippets that feel as though they have a meaning. These are moments branded in memory. The point of view shifts between “Me” and “She” very organically. Keels balances the objective and subjective shifts perfectly. I have called literature art before, but I think this story qualifies as a visual masterpiece. Readers will look askance at me and wonder if I’m overstating. Perhaps I am overstating, but Lorraine’s and Isaiah’s story is an immersive experience. Readers will get invested in the happiness of the couple.
I am very impressed with the cohesive and clean structure of Love Unfeigned. There is not a scene I’d delete or a word I’d remove. The story works as a whole and it works perfectly. Keels’s work would fit right in with the classic masters of the genre. Watch the book trailer to Love Unfeigned.
If you like classic literature, stories of the human experience and romance novels, Love Unfeigned by Nadine C. Keels is the novella for you. Read an excerpt and buy on
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