Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Louis Hates Valentine’s Day
AUTHOR: Sue Brown
PUBLISHER: Sue Brown’s Stories
LENGTH: 44 pages
BLURB:
Louis hates Valentine’s Day. He hates it with a passion he reserves for Marmite and footballers’ wives. Louis is also a florist and Valentine’s Day is his nemesis, turning his fingers into pin-cushions to make bouquets for men who give red roses to their wives and then ignore them for the rest of year.
Louis hates Valentine’s Day. No one gives him flowers. The only customer he likes is Arnie who buys a new bouquet every week. Arnie gives Louis a chance to explore his love of floriography; the language of flowers. It never occurs to Louis that maybe he isn’t listening to what Arnie is trying to say.
REVIEW:
Oh Louis…. He’s so fun, but such a little twerp! He refers to himself as a “bitchy queen”, and boy is he! He’s also sweet and thoughtful, and passionate about his flowers. He DOES know better than anyone else what flowers are perfect. Obviously, from the blurb, it’s very clear that Louis is personally not a fan of Valentine’s Day. As the owner of a flower shop, it’s a pretty big money maker, but as a single, lonely man, it sucks. With that set up, we get a sweet little story….
Louis gets up at the crack of dawn to prepare for the big day, picking up flowers at the flower market, then assembling basic bouquets and pre ordered arrangements. Then follows an insane day of quirky customers, cheating husbands, grieving daughters, frantic last minute husbands and boyfriends. And Arnie… Well, I can’t tell you about Arnie without giving away the story!
Louis Hates Valentine’s Day is a short story, it’s well written and perfect for what it is. Sad and sweet, quirky and gentle. There is some depth to Louis, we get just a bit of his history, but Arnie is more of a mystery. We don’t really get to know him, just the little bit Louis sees. There are some nice additional characters, again, not a lot of time to get much about them, but enough to add to the story. I loved the use of the language of flowers, I have a tattoo and very carefully chose flowers based on their meanings. The whole concept of carrying on conversations with flowers is wonderful!
I have mixed feeling about such short stories, I appreciate them for what they are, a quick little glimpse of a story and a couple of lives, but I sometimes feel cheated, I’m greedy and I want more. That is not meant as a complaint at all, Sue Brown did what she was meant to do, and gave us a great little story. It’s hard to really review it though, there’s not much I can say without giving away the plot. I can tell you that Sue is a fantastic author, if you haven’t read her books, go buy some!
RATING: 
Well, what you were able to say certainly peaked my interest. Will have to see about picking this up for my fixing of valentines day fun.