Red Dress Walking is an immensely enjoyable book to read with personable and complex characters, ensuring that the reader can relate to each as a real person in a real life situation: the vibrancy and enthusiasm of Suella, the take charge Tash; William representing the duo of being misunderstood and misunderstanding, and Emily whose compassion and confusion when dealing with the loss of her life’s anchor is entirely relatable. The combined whirlpool of all of the central characters takes this book above the simple description of “romantic fiction” and instead propels the book into an assessment of multifaceted relationships and the challenges of accepting what one needs to, to grow and let go.

In response to Ms Kneen’s commentary, I feel that some of the very clever subtleties of the story may have been overlooked. The more one considers the symbolism of the “Red Dress” - I strongly disagree that there is no subtext - the more the story takes meaning. The premise of the Red Dress, in my opinion, is not the actual gift itself, but what it represents: Emily’s choice. William adored Emily in the dress, so why does she fear it? Does the dress take her back to their first night of love making when she sees only real herself in the window without the shades of her constant companions? The Red Dress is pivotal in symbolising Emily’s choice of “real life” (William) or letting go of the anchors in her life (Lydia and Jane); and it is the Red Dress that represents the thread of Emily’s descent into depression or grief for a lost reality. If one considers when the images of the Red Dress appear in the story it is almost as if the “flashes of red” cut through Emily’s subconscious and provides the key to the disorienting real world without the protective shell that she has created for herself and her desperate desire to co-exist in both.

It would be a great shame if readers simply read the surface story of this book without delving into the thought provoking and subtle “sub-text”. Certainly readers should enjoy the book with a glass of exceptional quality red, but it is even more enjoyable to sit back and analyse what Red Dress means to all of us: what challenges us to deal with issues and what choices will we make?

Red Dress Walking by S.A. Jones is a complex tale of two dissimilar individuals, Will and Emily, who find each other and begin their journey of love and life but the expectations and events that present themselves cause confusion and heartache for our dual protagonists, especially with the appearance of a stunning red dress. Jones uses the dress as a representation for what Emily fears and what Will wishes of their union. For William the dress is the perfect gift for his beloved, it transforms her into the sexually charged woman of his desires but for Emily the dress is far more sinister and heralds a major quietening of her inner world. Red Dress Walking is a story for all couples, carried along skilfully by Jones’s inclusion of Emily’s humorous sidekicks Tash and Suella and a series of delightfully amusing circumstances, Red Dress is a consistently entertaining read.

What is beauty? Is very much the question that we are asked in the story of William and Emily. Personified by the physically stunning Katya, Jones makes the comment that beauty is not only something that we are attracted to but that it indeed transforms us and our world, for to be close to beauty, to be accepted by beautiful people is to become more beautiful oneself.

The clever use of dual narrative gives Red Dress Walking an edge on other relationship dramas. Jones has inhabited both the female and the male character with startling credibility. The result is to not only provide us with the motivations for the characters actions but serves to show how fragile and chaotic communication within relationships can be, how we get it all wrong and how sometimes we can, quite by accident, get it so right.

Packed with intertextual references, Red Dress is very much a tribute to Jones’s love of the written word along with frequent sojourns of the gastronomical and viticultural variety, readers will find this story to be thought provoking, funny and fulfilling. Perhaps leaving only the unanswered question of our two lovers possible reunion?