In the Mood by Ellen Fisher

Bland and uninspiring short story
1 star

Jude Patterson is a cute and shy romance novelist who’s more at home with his historical romances than the contemporaries he’s trying to write. And that includes his love scenes which tend to be on the flowery side.

When a beautiful fan, Alyssa Stone, offers to help him write better love scenes, Jude jumps at the chance. But now he has to write a happy ending as well as make sure he gets one for himself.


I liked the premise of this short story and, at the start with the introduction of Jude, I started to enjoy it. But then along came Alyssa and the story took a major nosedive.

Alyssa was such an unlikeable character that I just couldn’t root for her in any way, shape or form. She wasn’t relatable and her attitude towards Jude was horrible. I wondered why Jude even liked her but the descriptions made it clear that it wasn’t for her winning personality. Even when the reasons behind her behaviour were revealed, I couldn’t drum up any sympathy for her as it seemed so far fetched and ridiculous.

Together, Jude and Alyssa had little chemistry and the story plodded along without much happening of interest. By the end, while I did finish it, I was extremely bored and had little interest in the love story or how it ended up.

Lots of people seemed to enjoy this story but I’m afraid it just wasn’t for me. At least it was free when I downloaded it but even then I really can’t recommend it.