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Untying the Gordian Knot

by Abby (link)

Genre drama, dark humor, suspense, erotica
Pairings OMC/OMC, Taylor/OMC, Zac/OMC, Zaylor
Length 50 chapters
Status Completed (with completed prequel and unfinished sequel)

It might be a bit misleading to call this a Shout it Out era story. Although the original version was posted then, the version I’m reviewing dates from 2013. Nearly a year after she deleted her journal, I finally asked Abby how she’d planned for Untying the Gordian Knot to end. She gave me a summary of it, and soon after, began posting an edited and eventually finished version. This is the one I’ll be reviewing, and I’ll try not to compare it to expectations I had for it.

The pairings listing above contain some spoilers, although it was clear from the beginning that this wasn’t a typical “Zaylor” story. One of the biggest reasons for that is the fact that the original characters are so important to the plot — so important, in fact, that I felt it necessary to note a pairing that contains no Hansons. Sam is a fantastic original character in that he has a wonderful, rich personality and really takes part in the action of the story rather than just sitting back and having things happen to him. Without his distinct snarky voice, Gordian Knot wouldn’t be half the story that it is.

Originally, Abby stopped writing around the two-thirds point. A bit past that point this time, she began posting a prequel called I’m Not Out. I won’t be writing a separate review of it, but suffice it to say that it’s a decent little addition to the story. It fills in a few plot holes and allows for some characters who barely appeared in Gordian Knot up to that point to take on bigger roles without it feeling completely out of the blue.

It was also around this point that the story began to deviate a bit from the summary she’d given me. Without that summary, of course, you can’t share in my slight disappointment about the things that either didn’t happen in the way I expected or didn’t happen at all. I say slight because I know now that there is a sequel that will hopefully take care of all the loose ends left hanging after the aforementioned knot was untied.

Review by Bethany (website)