There are times I think I'm doomed as a romance writer, because the love stories that hit me the hardest tend to be ones that don't end happily. I just reread "Sorrel's Heart" by Susan Palwick, and I doubt many people would classify it as romance. But it was as a love story that it struck me.
In a world where people are divided into normals and freaks with twisted bodies, two freaks meet: Sorrel, a girl with a heart that's attached on the outside of her body, and Quartz, a man who enjoys inflicting pain. Sorrel's condition is literal and figurative; she feels emotions more intensely, because her heart is so exposed.
They begin as practical companions and end up as lovers. There's no elegant courtship, but I never doubted the intensity of their bond. And the story is about how Sorrel's presence in Quartz's life changes him — one of the ultimate ambitions of women in relationships, it seems.
Not an appropriate read for a morose day, but striking and beautiful, despite — because of — the twisted characters.
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