The Marriage Test by Suzanne Redfearn

Published digitally (Kindle) by ‎ Amazon Original Stories on November 23, 2021

If Amazon had labeled this short story as “cheesy romance” I wouldn’t have been suckered into reading it. I’m not familiar with Suzanne Redfearn, but she describes herself as a “bestselling author of captivating mainstream fiction.” I can’t speak to her other work, but “mainstream fiction” refers to fiction that is appealing across a wide audience. I can’t imagine this story appealing to anyone other than a devoted fan of trash.

After three months of dating, Ava Nicole Barnes accepts a massive engagement ring from her dream hunk, Justin. Ava loves him even more because Justin wants to get married before Ava’s beloved but cancer-ridden grandmother kicks the bucket. This whirlwind romance distresses Ava’s good friend Walton, who is steady and devoted and knows how to fix sinks but apparently lacks whatever Ava sees in Justin. Justin met Ava through Walton and instantly breached the man code by disregarding Justin’s request not to ask her out, which says something distasteful about Justin, not that Ava is equipped to understand it. Here are some examples of Ava’s description of her feelings about Justin:

• “Thick emotion wells in my throat, as it does every time I see him after we’ve been apart, like I’ve not drawn a full breath since we saw each other last.”

• “his touch sends a current down my spine that causes a blush”

• "Never before have I felt such attraction to someone, like there’s an electromagnetic connection between us that causes my skin to flame whenever he’s near.”

Trite prose like that causes my brain to flame whenever I read it, but not until a thick stew of stomach contents wells in my throat.

Paradise begins to unravel when Ava and Justin bake a cake together. Justin is a neat freak and Ava is messy. Oh the agony! The baking is a prelude to the “marriage-cake quest,” a tradition in Ava’s privileged family that, if successful, assures a lifetime of wedded bliss, or at least a marriage that doesn’t end in divorce. The tradition has something to with finding the nest of a frigate bird in a swamp, stealing an egg, and using it in the joint project of baking a marriage cake (not to be confused with a wedding cake, which can be made with  conventional eggs).

Justin, Ava, and Walton (who is present as a “witness”) go on a hike as part of the quest, giving Walton a chance to suggest that Justin (who is worried about an ill-defined merger of his business with some other business) might be more interested in Ava’s money than in Ava. Say it ain’t so, Justin! In any event, the quest produces misfortune.

Ava is too much of a ditz to gain any sympathy from a reader who isn’t sympathetic to ditzes, but not enough of a ditz to have comic appeal. She fancies herself to be an environmentalist who tries (without any particular plan that a reader can discern) to prevent the destruction of reefs, or at least a particular reef. Ava is clearly too frivolous to make any serious planet-saving effort. She’s more concerned with picturing the perfect life, complete with garden and dog, that she will soon have with beloved Justin.

Will the quest teach Ava a lesson? Of course. Will she learn that there is more to a marriage than romantic platitudes and childish expectations? Will she learn to grow up and stop being a ditz? Will she learn that she shouldn’t tell a whopping lie to her fiancé right before they intend to marry? The lesson she learns has something to do with developing twinned heartbeats like seahorses, a strained analogy at best. Sadly, it is the least important of the lessons she should have learned, making “The Marriage Test” the least important story about marriage I’ve ever read.

NOT RECOMMENDED