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Justine Avery is an award-winning author of stories large and small for all. Born in the American Midwest and raised all over the world, she is inherently an explorer, duly fascinated by everything around her and excitedly noting the stories that abound all around. As an avid reader of all genres, she weaves her own stories among them all. She has a predilection for writing speculative fiction and story twists and surprises she can’t even predict herself.
Avery has either lived in or explored all 50 states of the union, over 36 countries, and all but one continent; she lost count after moving 30-some times before the age of 20. She’s intentionally jumped out of airplanes and off the highest bungee jump in New Zealand, scuba dived unintentionally with sharks, designed websites, intranets, and technical manuals, bartered with indigenous Panamanians, welded automobile frames, observed at the Bujinkan Hombu Dojo in Noba, Japan, and masterminded prosperous internet businesses—to name a few adventures. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree that life has never required, and at age 28, she sold everything she owned and quit corporate life—and her final "job"—to freelance and travel the world as she always dreamed of. And she’s never looked back.
She currently lives near Los Angeles with her husband, British film director Devon Avery, and their three adopted children: Becks, Sam, and Lia. She writes from wherever her curiosity takes her.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Last Shot: A Short Tale of the Absurdity of Life and Death is a contemporary fiction short story written by Justine Avery. Bernard was a precise and orderly man who was sick and tired of the world. He felt unappreciated and scorned by people who were not fit to be considered his peers. He finally came to the conclusion that the solution would be a precise and orderly suicide. It would be a simple thing to accomplish once he had researched his method and quantified the ingredients that would go into the alcohol and drug cocktail that would usher him into his long-deserved peace. He measured out his beloved vodka, organized the capsules, caplets and tablets into an aesthetically pleasing design, and set out to engineer his death. After consuming the alcohol and pills, he left his kitchen for the last time and, entering the bedroom, lay down upon his bed which had been made with military precision. This was the way he would go out of this existence, with precision and deliberation.
Justine Avery’s darkly comedic short story, Last Shot: A Short Tale of the Absurdity of Life and Death, grabs the reader’s attention with the first lines as Bernard revels in his grotesque enjoyment of his premeditated demise. This is a taut and well-written story that transports you into the mind of this bitter and disillusioned man, and you can’t help but chuckle at the ineptness of Bernard’s efforts to be the master of his fate. But, as you suppress that uncharitable snicker, there’s a deeply uncomfortable feeling that remains; a sense that something’s seriously wrong in this world Bernard inhabits that he should have gotten so deeply led astray, and it makes you pause and think. And that’s the hallmark of a powerful and compelling short story. Last Shot is highly recommended.
