To use an advertising slogan…Come home to Kane Country. You can go on an ‘Exquisite Excursion’ by being ‘Northwest Bound’. You can even be ‘Sidetracked’ and get involved with the ‘Secret Service’ or the ‘Armed Forces’.

Okay, I’ve had a little fun with Virginia’s story titles, but with stories that good, I can have fun with them. And they are good. She is a prolific writer with some stories running into several parts.

Take ‘Does It Matter’, not only do you get a good explanation of life behind baseball, but you get a nice twist at the end. With Northwest Bound, the main character gets unfairly treated in the beginning, but wins out in the end. And you even get the same story from two different angles with ‘I Think I Need A Drink’ and ‘The Next Round’s On Me’

But enough of that, lets get down to the review. Virginia has seventeen stories on Storysite with six being multi-part. All are well constructed and are good reads.

I have mentioned ‘Does It Matter’ and the twist at the end. I liked this one, I liked it very much. It starts with Van being kicked of the baseball team and the attendant problems that brings (okay not in any great detail). A quick tour of his descent into alcoholism follows. Van ends up on a course for scouts and meets another alcoholic, Bill. They have a heart to heart talk in which Bill finally lets Van know how he deals with the craving.

‘Exquisite Excursion’ tells of the journey a son whose mother is a lesbian. She likes to get her own way, at least with him, and he thinks he is able to channel this to his own ends. You guessed it…he doesn’t get away with it in the end, but it does end happily.

Having the same story told from two angles has some attractions, for one you get two stories for the price of one, but it also has some drawbacks or pitfalls. You have to be careful that both stories agree and, if you have a key scene in one story that involves only one of the characters, you have to be able to introduce that scene in the other story. I am not sure that I would like to attempt such a feat, but Virginia has. The story is told from Lou’s point in ‘Next Round’s On Me’ and from Joe’s point in ‘I Think I Need A Drink’.