A LITTLE CHRISTMAS MAGIC delivered on its title for this old Grinch

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS MAGIC
K.C. FAELAN
Beaten Track Publishing (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: It's the day after Thanksgiving and Ryan Forsyth is helping his friends decorate for Christmas. Little does he know that the weekend will usher in a profound change to his life, a chance for happiness if he isn't too afraid to reach out and grasp it.

Boone Ainsworth has been friends with Ryan since junior high, ever since their mutual friend Greg Hayes introduced them. Since the day they met, no one has stood a chance at claiming Boone's heart except Ryan, but Ryan is so deep in the closet, he hasn't got a clue.

Their happily ever after is just a step away, until a panicked decision changes everything. From that point on, things don't go smoothly and Ryan and Boone make mistakes neither may be able to forgive. But it's the holidays, and Ryan is banking on a little Christmas magic to help smooth the way.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM THE GOODREADS M/M GIFT EXCHANGE. THANKS!

My Review: A story written for an anthology, it's a novella-sized bite of Yuletide sentimentality that I ate up with a spoon. Four friends get together to crap up...decorate, I mean decorate...the home that's a kind of shared base for the four of them. Kai and Greg, the couple whose home it is, have been together for a while. Ryan and Boone are two points on a school-age triumvirate of friendship that's survived the angst and anger of adolescence. Ryan's out, came out with Greg in school; Ryan's straight. He proved this by dropping Greg and Boone after they came out...only for a while, only until he realized they were his friends first and gay second. Making up then meant a real connection could last until young adulthood.

But single Boone has always known that Ryan has first call on his heart. And Ryan is conspicuously single, too. Ryan thinks his jealousy of Boone's casual dates with guys is about the time they use that Boone could...should...spend with him. As buds. It can't sexual possessiveness. He's straight...goes out with girls!

After a car accident affords him the chance to really look at his life in detail, Ryan starts facing up to his emotional reality: he loves Boone as more than a friend. He also has a lot of internalized homophobia. It isn't easy to come out to yourself, it's scarier than saying it to others because you're saying it for the very first time: "I'm gay" when you barely know what that might mean to you. By the time it comes out of your mouth, it's at least possible to *think* the word gay in relation to yourself.

Screwing things up is a young-person specialty. It's scary how much of life consists of trying to make good on your screw-ups at every age. Ryan and Boone go from goof to solecism to fucked-up nasty and yet...this one relationship gets these bonehead boys to work at it, keep working at it, try again.

That's the Yule spirit I needed in 2025. It might as well be 34th Street out there I feel such a need for a miracle! In this brief story of two young guys seeking a path to each others' hearts I felt closer to it than at any other time this ugly, fractured year.