All These Years

Fancy being scoured out and reborn by a fic? Well, then this'll do it for you. There's something about this writer's style and talent as a story-teller that just draws you in and sweeps you along. She *does* take a reader to some unexpected and dark corners - when I saw where she was going in this one with Bodie and Doyle's sister, my heart went to my throat. And the whole middle section when Doyle is just floundering, seemingly abandoned by Bodie, just had me clenching my teeth.

But it's the beauty of her writing, the breathless free-flowing style of her word choices that just leaves me shaking my head going *damn* sometimes, it makes me trust her somehow. She nails emotions, feelings, observations, etc so perfectly and uniquely - just read the first sexual encounter between the two in this story. So much emotional pain from Doyle, so much lump-in-the-throat generosity and self-denial from Bodie. The tension, the love, the pain and the tenderness all leap off the page.

I do not always agree with the choices she makes - in this one, the pass that Murphy makes at Doyle and Ann Holly's brief reappearance both seemed superfluous, but these are minor detractions for me. She pulled me into her CI5 world, and held my hand while I squinted through my fingers at times. But I loved every second of it.

And the ending? All I will say is that this is one writer who *knows* how to end a story...