{"id":16280,"date":"2023-06-28T12:33:03","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T18:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=16280"},"modified":"2023-06-28T12:33:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T18:33:03","slug":"love-fate-by-peter-toeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=16280","title":{"rendered":"Love & Fate by Peter Toeg"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A bittersweet and, at times, bizarre collection that looks at the complexities of life with style and savvy\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his absorbing latest collection of short stories, Toeg deftly explores love, life, death, family dynamics, loneliness, grief, guilt, regret, and redemption. In \u201cThe Last Words He Said,\u201d a dying man in a hospital room receives three unexpected visitors. A unique but brief and horrendous experience brings two strangers together after two decades in \u201cFalling in Love.\u201d In \u201cThe Escape Artist,\u201d a man finally realizes his purpose in life after a lifetime of struggling to find the reason behind his good luck. A man down on his luck and estranged from his family finds an unlikely ally in an old man in \u201cThe LG.\u201d Toeg compassionately conjures nuanced characters, expertly weaves together their stories, and his consistent use of first-person narrative voices is highly effective, placing reading directly into his protagonists\u2019 minds as they struggle with their fears, insecurities, self-doubts, and traumas. Trying to unravel his father\u2019s mysterious past, a man finds himself entangled in a deep web of darkness in \u201cHe Who Sups With the Devil.\u201d A fateful fiery event changes the course of a troubled ex-convict as well as his therapist in \u201dChanging Your Mind.\u201d Toeg employs a sense of dread and foreboding to great effect in multiple stories\u2014the young protagonist, though, finds her savior in her new friend, readers keep wondering about the latter\u2019s true identity and motivations behind his actions in \u201cEvery Love Story Has Been Written.\u201d Similarly, he imbues the plot with a sense of dread and urgency in \u201cHow the World Works,\u201d keeping readers on the edge of their seats as the narrative draws to a surprising ending. Occasionally, emotional undertones flow over, as in the grieving wife\u2019s somewhat melodramatic discovery about her late husband\u2019s past in \u201cThe Widow\u2019s Keeper.\u201d  While there is hope and happiness, many of these stories end with tragedies, the characters meeting a strange fate, either in their search for answers or in a simple twist of fate. Death and grief remain the book\u2019s enduring themes, along with human angst, mental illness, trauma, friendship, relationships, forgiveness, regret, redemption, love, life, and the intricate, fraught bonds of family across the generations. An absorbing, haunting collection about bruised, sensitive souls struggling to make sense of the world around them and their own circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love & Fate\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Toeg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy now\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date September 5, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 979-8351120638<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $12.68 (USD) Paperback, $6.99 Kindle edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bittersweet and, at times, bizarre collection that looks at the complexities of life with style and savvy\u2026 In his absorbing latest collection of short stories, Toeg deftly explores love, life, death, family dynamics, loneliness, grief, guilt, regret, and redemption. In \u201cThe Last Words He Said,\u201d a dying man in a hospital room receives three unexpected visitors. A unique but brief and horrendous experience brings two strangers together after two decades in \u201cFalling in Love.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":16281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[38100332,24777292,7223,91,3328,178,723769881,1747,8053601,1136176,62857929,723769804,723769803,91586,723769805,1473,1008073,856121,309,546,349],"class_list":["post-16280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amreading","tag-amwriting","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-ebooks","tag-fiction","tag-indie-author","tag-indie-books","tag-indiebooks","tag-kindle","tag-kobo","tag-literary-fiction","tag-nook","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-short-stories","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-4eA","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/love-and-fate.jpg?fit=333%2C499&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16284,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16280\/revisions\/16284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}