This book was like if you took contemporary gay romance and put it into a blender with A Christmas Carol-type ghosts who Teach Someone Important Life Lessons and also Arthurian myth. Given that I'm a fan of all three of those things, I enjoyed it, even though none of the individual themes or plot devices worked quite the way I wanted.
Gavin and his partner Piers had been dating for three years when Gavin decided it was time they spent Christmas together as a couple. But Piers is devoutly Catholic and hadn't reconciled his faith and his sexuality, and when it came time to tell his family he was in love with a man, he instead broke up with Gavin. Gavin took that extremely well and decided to go out into the snow to search for a clue for his thesis on a historical basis for King Arthur while out of his head on migraine medication. He gets rescued by Art and Lance, two hot gay guys who also bear a striking resemblance to the mythical figures Gavin is trying to ground in fact, and well. They teach him a valuable life lesson about himself and also gay sex because why not.
I don't know! I enjoyed this book in the same way I've enjoyed a couple of other books by the same author: while I read the story I'm all in, but as soon as I can take a step back from it I have no idea how or if any of it works. There's a confidence about the writing that just makes it easy to go along with stuff that in the hands of a weaker writer would fall completely flat, which is definitely a compliment, but also Gavin and Piers never really feel like a real couple to me, so their eventual reunion and new appreciation for each other doesn't quite land. But at the end of the day, it was a satisfying gay Christmas romance for me, so it did its job.
Grade: B
Gavin and his partner Piers had been dating for three years when Gavin decided it was time they spent Christmas together as a couple. But Piers is devoutly Catholic and hadn't reconciled his faith and his sexuality, and when it came time to tell his family he was in love with a man, he instead broke up with Gavin. Gavin took that extremely well and decided to go out into the snow to search for a clue for his thesis on a historical basis for King Arthur while out of his head on migraine medication. He gets rescued by Art and Lance, two hot gay guys who also bear a striking resemblance to the mythical figures Gavin is trying to ground in fact, and well. They teach him a valuable life lesson about himself and also gay sex because why not.
I don't know! I enjoyed this book in the same way I've enjoyed a couple of other books by the same author: while I read the story I'm all in, but as soon as I can take a step back from it I have no idea how or if any of it works. There's a confidence about the writing that just makes it easy to go along with stuff that in the hands of a weaker writer would fall completely flat, which is definitely a compliment, but also Gavin and Piers never really feel like a real couple to me, so their eventual reunion and new appreciation for each other doesn't quite land. But at the end of the day, it was a satisfying gay Christmas romance for me, so it did its job.
Grade: B
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