Naught’s Had, A Romance

Naught’s Had is the story of Kimberley and Alex, two ordinary, unsophisticated young people, set against the backdrop of the 1970's. As rock 'n roll energizes their world and makes them believe in tomorrow, the story plays out the complexities of two people, and their choices of how to love, and not love each other.

“​Everybody knows Alex. . . . He’s charming, good looking, and gets a rush out of life and women. With Kim, he finds an incredible rush in loving her. He has to choose, but finds ways not to. With Alex, Kimberly’s tasted heaven, and doesn’t care what hell she has to go through.”

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AUTHOR’S COMMENTS
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My novel is about passion, longings, fears. It is about social pressures. It is about letting love be whatever it is. It is about holding on and holding back. It is about games people play. It is about the interplay between love and fear. It is loud. It is urgent. It is young. It is frustrating. It has something to say about being alive. (Vivian)

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EXCERPT
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“One look and he saw that last time was still in her eyes, in her smile – even more alive now than it had been that night, as if time kept up the drunkenness, as if she didn’t know (didn’t want to know) that he’d sobered up with the day. He smiled to himself – he’d expected her to come looking for more of the same, expected her to try to tie him to that. But she was dreaming, and he knew how to wake her up to a few of the realities of life. ... ”

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REVIEWS
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These are characters you won't soon forget, dealing with issues that are unfortunately too prevalent in today's society. Author Vivian Gerow does a masterful job of exploring the complex nuances of [their] relationships through her often lyrical, almost stream-of-consciousness writing style.
PUBLISHER’S DAILY REVIEWS

Kimberly and Alex make their choices until their love for each other lead both to go in separate directions. But, before this happens, we experience the questioning of life itself through these characters, as they try to understand ‘this thing called love,’ intellectually through Kim, and viscerally through Alex. No solution is ever given. We have it “naught” (as it were) – we’ll just have to try to figure it out for ourselves. It’s a ‘whodunnit’ on the relationship front.
“Shirley Fortescue”