Hating Valentine's Day
Allison Rushby
Red Dress, Feb 2005,$12.95, 354 pp.
ISBN: 0373895119

Wedding photographer Liv Hetherington detests the rituals of Valentine's Day and, for that matter, dating in general. She vows this year to elude her matchmaking father, the nonsense of her boss, and the machinations of her best friend. She growls at those who think that Valentine's Day is a smashing success for the romantic. Declaring V for victory, this year Liv is making it bah humbug clear to those who throw Valentine's Day and dating in general at her.

However, her negative ions are abruptly battered when the sixties great in crowd wedding photographer Mrs. Batty Smith comes from beyond to blithely inform Liv that she must change her attitude or be eternally wedded to the darkside. As Liv wonders what was in her food or water Batty-Smith avows that the spirits of Valentine Past, Present, and Future will come calling her. Each comes with a "video of her life" with Past having been filmed, Present being filmed and Future filmed based on a trend analysis of her feelings.

Allison Rushby provides a delightful rendition of the Dickens' classic switching holidays so that the audience obtains a fresh, fabulous fable. Liv is a delightful scrooge and the human support cast brings out the bah humbug to relationships attitude. The ghosts are wonderful as each is quite different so the audience will feel as if there are three shorts running through this fabulous tale.

Harriet Klausner