Sometimes Murphy Wins

Sometimes Murphy Wins
Cassidy McKay
Mardi Gras Publishing
ISBN: 0-9787262-1-9
Fiction, Paranormal, Erotic
Reviewed by Dave Thompson

Most people would recoil at the thought of being match-made by their maiden aunts. For Trina, however, it’s far worse than that because her maiden aunts are dead. So is her father, but that doesn’t stop him from sticking an oar in as well. And so unfolds the first chapter of Sometimes Murphy Wins, an almost implausibly joyful riot of raunch, romance and just enough supernatural hijinks to remind you that, no matter befalls the stubbornly single Trina, there’s always a spook to undo it. For better or for worse.
Usually it’s for worse. She sparks a riot in a bar and loses a tooth; and when she meets the man of her dreams, it turns out that she now has an uncontrollable lisp. She can’t even pronounce her passion correctly. Another prospective suitor turns out to be a cop, another- well, the calamities are so endless that, around halfway through the story, you forget you’re reading a 62 page novella, and it becomes a 60s sitcom instead, if Endora (Bewitched) and Jeanie (I Dream Of) had opened rival dating agencies, and recruited Patti Duke as their first client.
Written with a bright eye for slapstick detail, but a keen sense of drama and darkness as well, Sometimes Murphy Wins is perfect for those summer evenings when you want something more diverting than the usual modern romance, but something more lasting than an erotic quickie- because, on that particular subject, the tension set up in an early false start lasts so long and builds so high that it sometimes feels like Trina’s never going to let go. But, when she finally does, even the spirits get high.