Move

by Sherri Fulmer Moorer

All Ruby Josen wanted was to get ahead in life. After a decade of lost relationships and missed opportunities, she's ready to move on and desperate to do whatever it takes to get out of her rut. When Ruby meets Bryce, a handsome stranger at the town's spring festival, his offer to turn fate to her favor seems too good to be true. But nothing comes without a price, and Ruby learns that interfering with fate has bigger consequences than she realized. It leaves her to wonder who's really controlling her life and who - or what - Bryce really is.

230 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 16, 2013

About the author

Most writers use their bio an explanation of who they are and why they write. I’ll make this simple. My name is Sherri Fulmer Moorer. I write because I’ve always loved to do it, and ebooks gave me an opportunity to share those stories with readers that I just couldn’t pass up. The purpose of my writing is to escape reality and experience the adventure of ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

I work full time in an administrative job, which is great for keeping me in touch with people and reality and, in turn, inspires to write more. I’m married with two parrots that keep our hearts, home, and lives filled with joy and silliness that most people find strange. I’m a borderline introvert/extrovert who’s kindred spirit, according to online quizzes, is Scooter from The Muppets when the introvert wins, and a Sith Inquisitor when the extrovert wins.

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Reviews

[chucklesthescot · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

When Ruby is passed over for promotion, she starts to suffer at the hands of Millie, the successful applicant, and boss and former friend Simone. When a mysterious stranger offers to help her to get her life back, Ruby's quiet life spirals out of control and life gets very dangerous and complicated.

When I first heard about this book it was referred to as urban fantasy but the author told me that this was mainly a mystery story, which is certainly a better description. I don't read a lot from this genre but I very much enjoyed the story. Poor Ruby is one of life's punchbags and an innocent wish for others to stop picking on her turns her life into a rollercoaster ride. The plot is interesting and one problem after another comes along for Ruby, who you feel such sympathy for. Everyone can relate to being miserable at work and having the boss from hell. Everyone can relate to being accused of doing something you didn't do and struggling to prove it. The book moves at rapid pace with enough descriptive work to enhance it but not enough to slow it down. It moves from situation to situation in a smooth and nicely constructed manner. The characters are developed well without being overdone.

There are no real negatives to the book and I think that the overall length is just right. There are a few minor editing errors where character names are mixed up but nothing that takes away from the story.

I'd rate this as 3.5 out of 5(if I could) and it will suit fans of mysery, cozy mystery, chicklit, general fiction and maybe paranormal fans as well. I would be interested in reading more by this author in the future.

[J. Core · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruby Josen is a meek woman. She’s passive, she’s uninteresting, and she’s unadventurous, but mostly she’s just complacent. She recently applied for and was rejected for a promotion at the graphics company where she works in a small Tennessee town. To add insult to this injury, Millie, the woman given the job, is an angry, pushy, demanding person who seems to have it out for Ruby. To then heap even more insult onto the injury and the first insult, Ruby learns that her friend, Simone, who had promised to recommend her for the promotion, reneged and actually helped Millie to get the job.
The insults keep coming, but not before Ruby meets Bryce, a mysterious and seemingly prescient stranger, at a local festival. He promises to remove the obstacles which have been keeping Ruby back. It’s this apparently random happenstance encounter that sets the action into play. People begin turning up bludgeoned to death in this small mountain town – people who have been making life hard for Ruby.
Move by Sherri Fulmer Moorer is a paranormal thriller that explores the philosophical issues of free will, fatalism and why-are-women-so-mean-to-each-other? With a strong focus on the minutia of office politics, Move is a meticulously plotted examination of the butterfly effect. Each action results in – not a snowball, but an avalanche of cause-and-effect chaos.
Move fits nicely into the milieu of tales throughout history that have examined the idea that the fates which control our lives are an amalgam of malevolent and benevolent sprites with their own agendas and rules which bind them. From the Morai through Job to Daniel Webster and Robert Johnson, every culture has a story like Move. The author seems to understand this, and she judiciously picks a little from this legend and a little from that one to create her own unique template on which to build.
Yet this is not a novel without problems. Much of the dialogue is repetitive. The characters rehash the same discussions multiple times. This gives the story a realistic conversational feel, but unfortunately slows down the narrative in several places. Much of this is due to the personality of the main protagonist, Ruby. Has she been treated unfairly? Yes. Do we care? Not really? She’s a woman who has given up on life, and it makes us wonder why so many of the supporting characters are still in her corner when she’s off sitting in the bleachers.
What the story has in its favor though is a clever twist on the paranormal character, Bryce. Is he psychic? A ghost? A dybbuk? An angel? Also, until we learn for certain who the killer is, suspicion is genuinely fluid. Is Bryce the killer? Is Ruby? Maybe it was Simone or Ruby’s strongest friend and advocate, Denise.
One thing that is clear, Ms Fulmer Moorer is well versed in the inner-workings of freelance art companies. She has clearly embraced the SOP writerly advice to write-what-one-knows. If we remove the metaphysical aspects and the murder plot, I’m pretty sure we’re left with a look into the author’s personal journal with the names changed to protect the innocent.

[Sherri Moorer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my book about a woman that gets sick of her life rut - and discovers that taking the easy way out isn't always so easy.

Merged review:

This is my book!