AKA Stacey: 80 Days of Anguish and Passion in 80 Emails -- A Novella --

Imagine finding your “one person,” falling in love, and dreaming of a future together. Now imagine your “one person” -- the one your heart wants -- on the other side of the globe ... with someone else. Gone for 80 days, with limited communication and the kind of silence that can make a man crazy.

This is the story of Christian and Stacey, in love against the odds (and against the moral majority – she is, after all, married to someone else). Their story, as told by Beau J. Knox, is one of love letters and longing, of anguish and optimism, of holding on and letting go.

If you’ve ever been separated from someone you love -- during a military deployment or an international business trip or when young lovers go off to different colleges -- you know it can be incredibly romantic, and difficult, and seemingly impossible. When it comes to long-distance relationships, our grandparents taught us that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and we know it’s true. Or is it?

Open your mind as you jump into AKA Stacey, a stark and modern novella of forbidden love written in a format that’s easy to read and hard to put down. Ask yourself what might happen if you were Christian or Stacey -- if you had “just enough” communication with the person you love to remain hopeful, but not quite enough to be sure.

• Would the experience reveal your deepest insecurities?
• Would it make you just a little bit crazy?
• Would it leave you teetering at the edge, wanting more, assuring yourself you can be patient, trying not to feel resentful?

This story offers a reading experience that is purposefully stark. We are offered no narrator, and no contexts. All we have is the digital record -- what they wrote to each other via email. We must decide, as readers, whether we believe him, cheer for him, want a happy ending for him. We must decide, once we’re finally introduced to Stacey, whether we think Christian’s love for her is well-placed or ill-advised. And, in the end, we must ask ourselves whether this is a case of “three sides to every story ― his, hers and the truth.” It is the classic predicament of “he said, she said,” and -- unlike most pieces of romantic fiction, which are often voiced by a female protagonist -- his words are first, most plentiful and perhaps even most passionate. 80 days of anguish and passion, in emails and nothing else.