Poetry Slammed

In the wintery cold small town of Valentine, the hottest thing may just be the hopeful visionary young leader of tomorrow... a sharp woman named Veronica Glade. Tapped to make a run for congress, this local leader has created waves with her virtuous and respectful image and unique approach to everything. But someone else is in the town of Valentine... and they have very different plans for Veronica Glade.

The old Valentine Cathedral, partially restored and cleared of everything that related to its past purposes, becomes the setting for the first annual Valentine Valentine's Ball, a charitable gathering complete with visiting political dignitaries and everyone from the small town. It will not only be a dance and a party, it will be a charitable opportunity to show that everyone can come together for the greater good. However, confirming his assignment within the shadows of the massive old support pillars within the gothic structure, is a nameless man who is very much more than a hired assassin.

Along with volunteers from all over town, Veronica Glade is thrilled to be setting things up for the big Valentine Valentine's Ball, all of it her idea, especially a rather fun creative contest element that adds to the charitable nature of the ball itself.

Everyone who enters will be able to buy what she calls message hearts, little paper hearts on sticks that appear to be just that, red heart-shaped papers. But with help from the volunteers, she plans to have them writing simple little silly poetry in various colors of invisible ink. When the time comes, the lights in the partially restored cathedral will reveal all the poetry and the lucky ones holding certain colors of message hearts win a prize.

Little could Veronica imagine that the only prize tonight may end up being her. After getting a credible threat warning from a political watchdog group, she and her personal assistant and father figure Quentin are on alert. But both feel that the threat may very well just be to try and take her out of the spotlight, to put fear into her at such a public event. But will simply being cautious expose Veronica to more than just the danger of an unknown character assassin?

When the volunteers have all finished their message hearts, Veronica finds a couple of the hearts on the floor, a distance from the table where hundreds more are piled up. And when she uses a little flashlight to reveal the words on them, paranoid about that unknown threat... she discovers one of the message hearts has a very perverse little line of poetry.

While others are normal, this one message heart clearly was written to humiliate or embarrass her carefully thought out and creatively planned event. Are there more among the piles and piles of message hearts? Could there be even worse things written on them? If there are, and they are revealed to the shock and embarrassment of any guest at the Valentine's Valentine Ball holding them during the event, it could destroy Veronica Glade's virtuous image of integrity.

Along with Quentin she decides to check the others, spot check them, so as not to ruin the entire point of the surprise reveal for the guests. But is reading the poetry she reads, particularly each and every perverted depraved little line of seemingly personal remarks starting to affect Veronica herself? Is she starting to feel what the message hearts tell her to feel... starting to behave the way they tell her to behave... and worse starting to like it?

Love and hope are everything this Valentine's Day with a brand new twisted suspense thriller from the Kreme. But for Veronica Glade, she better hope everyone loves the new her as the Valentine's Valentine Ball is going to find her thoroughly Poetry Slammed.