ANTOINE LAURAIN'S PAGE: THE PORTRAIT, firstborn fiction by the author; & FRENCH RHAPSODY, meditation on Les Jadis and how much today is the same

FRENCH RHAPSODY
ANTOINE LAURAIN (tr. Emily Boyce & Jane Aitken)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Middle-aged doctor Alain Massoulier has received a life-changing letter—thirty-three years too late.

Lost in the Paris postal system for decades, the letter from Polydor, dated 1983, offers a recording contract to The Holograms, in which Alain played lead guitar. Back then The Holograms had believed in their cutting-edge sound. However, the music industry remained indifferent, and eventually the band split up, each going their own way.

Alain is overcome by nostalgia, and is tempted to track down the members of the group. But in a world where everything and everyone has changed . . . where will his quest take him?

Antoine Laurain's new novel combines his trademark charm with a satirical take on modern France.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Republication of these titles comes after Gallic Books' acquisition by Pushkin Press is picking up steam. I'm all over it, I loved Gallic Books and am (obviously) fond of Pushkin Press (and imprints).

In this rather odd tale, we go down the rabbit hole of missed chances. Every person this accident of fate changed came under Author Laurain's scrutiny in separate chapters, with life stories and so on. It made for nice reading...but what was I supposed to get from these stories? I know them but possess no framework to see what I'm to make of the fates of the post-The Holograms members. Maybe I'm insufficiently au fait with modern French society to get the full import of the meaning.

That said, I really resonated to the right-wing politician's trajectory, he who was the bassist. I've forgotten his name because I despise his politics (and his screed-spouting lectures) and, like Endora from Bewitched, I forget the names of those I dislike. Nonetheless, I thought it was very interesting to read about whatsisname's trajectory. How he got into it, what he does...all very timely. Especially for a book first published in 2015....

The others stuck with me less but were absorbing enough that I kept picking the book up to read more every time I put something else down. A clutter of wacky neighbors and hero's-journey cicerones detract from the central story's momentum, none of whom end up making a real difference. I found the ending...pat.

So I'm rating it only a tad under four stars. I got chuckles, I got angry mutterings, but I never got bored. That, my olds, is worth a lot in a literary month cram-jam full of heaps of nothing interesting.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE PORTRAIT
ANTOINE LAURAIN (tr. Emily Boyce & Jane Aitken)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A Parisian antiques collector finds himself in a case of mistaken identity after buying a portrait which curiously resembles him

While wandering through a Paris auction house, avid collector Pierre-François Chaumont is stunned to discover the eighteenth-century portrait of an unknown man who looks just like him. Much to his delight, Chaumont's bid for the work is successful, but back at home his jaded wife and circle of friends are unable to see the resemblance. Chaumont remains convinced of it, and as he researches into the painting's history, he is presented with the opportunity to abandon his tedious existence and walk into a brand new life.

Chaumont needs a fresh start—he and his wife fell out of love long ago, and the only thing that holds meaning for him anymore is his search for perfect objects. But this portrait is more than just a painting. The first night he owns it, Pierre-François dreams of another life, lived as the Comte de Mandragore, in a rural chateau, with a beautiful young wife. Awaking from the dream he’s determined to find this place—but it will take all his collector’s avidity, ingenuity, and unscrupulousness to make it his own. And when he finally has the chance to do so, will he be willing to pay the price to make it last?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Republication of these titles comes after Gallic Books' acquisition by Pushkin Press is picking up steam. I'm all over it, I loved Gallic Books and am (obviously) fond of Pushkin Press (and imprints).

This is the novella that started it all. Told in first-person, it's as immediate as a récit but takes place outside the narrator's skull, so it's not one. It's a sweetly-smiling stab at modern greed, the lust for Stuff that fills the gaping emotional holes in many modern people.

There's a sharp edge here, a flensing eye that spares no one...the unloved, unloving wife, their circle of "friends", the man himself...no one looks all that good under the pithy judgment of Author Laurain:

Modern eyes? They have no soul; they no longer look up to heaven. Even the most pure are only concerned with the immediate. Vulgar lust, petty self-interest, greed, vanity, prejudice, cowardly appetites and envy. Those are the abominable emotions swarming in today’s eyes. We have the souls of notaries and cooks. That’s why the eyes on the portraits in museums are so spectacular; they reflect prayers and tortures, regrets and remorse.

What a pompous peroration! What a quiet proof that simply being misunderstood and softly maligned does not equal being Right.

It's an afternoon's read. It will keep you involved if, like me, you think Stuff is an addiction that speaks more loudly about what it is...about greedily stuffing yourself...than what it isn't...a fulfilling and worthwhile use of you one wild and precious life (that endlessly apt and beautiful phrase from Mary Oliver).

I think it's evident it's a first work, the sheer improbability of the plot is up there with Thorne Smith that whole school of magical objects that open portals from modern to ancient (ot just other) times. The characters are, as is almost inevitable in novellas, not developed beyond the necessity of moving the plot forward.

It's a pleasant and worthwile read. Maybe don't hunt for it everywhere, but if you have the budget and the device, download it of a dull Sunday afternoon to enjoy its real pleasures.

LIVE IT OUT, sapphic second-chance romance told with honesty and beauty

LIVE IT OUT
JENN ALEXANDER
Bywater Books
$9.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Spencer Adams was never expected to be anything more than a high school dropout. She’d been a troubled teen, spending more time at the skate park than in school, at least until her music teacher introduced her to the guitar and music class became her lifeline. Ten years later, she is the guitarist in a band that has become a breakout success, and she wants to use that success to help other teens who have had the same rough start as her. She takes on a volunteer project with local youth as a way of honoring her past, not knowing that it will force her to revisit the one part of her past that she’d hoped to forget.

Faith Siebert has always had high expectations to live up to, and she has tried her best to fulfill those expectations, to be a good daughter, a good student, and a good friend. When she fell for Spencer in high school, she knew her family and friends would never approve. Scared of their reactions, Faith ended things with Spencer, following the path her parents wanted for her, even at the immense personal cost. Of course, it had only been a high school romance, destined for brevity anyway. At least, that’s what she told herself. But when Spencer shows up in her life once again, partnered with Faith on a youth music project, her world is rocked and she is forced to re-examine everything she knows about relationships and herself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Not much for rock-star romances, me, but I am a vulturous carrion-seeker for the corpses of heartbreaks past on second-chance narratives. Give me a high-school/college breakup undone decades later and I am on it like a Jane Austen bonnet. Add in the fact that the parties are a same-sex couple denied a natural ending by homophobia (internal or external, makes me no never-mind) and stand back while I run to get it. Didn't hurt your foot, did I?

I got what I was expecting in this read. I loved Spencer's complete willingness to use her skills to help kids in the same bad situation she came from to cope, on many levels, with their sense of powerlessness and absence of agency. True, they won't become rock stars but they will learn how to play a musical intrument...a thing that by itself increases one's satisfaction with one's life.

Faith, the One That Got Away for Spencer, believes it will and is surprised when it's Spencer who shows up to do the teaching. Her career as a social worker is so in-character for the girl she was all the way back in high school, it felt on the nose. I like social workers, and deeply admire their sense of purpose. I'm all in for a redemption arc here, as well, because Spencer's going back to her roots as a shelter-raised kid to extend her hand in helpful practicality.

Do I need to say that these women find their way into a relationship? It's a category romance. Of course they do.

In forming that long-delayed, much-desired romantic reconnection, each of them has to come to terms with her own part in their long estrangement, what it cost them both, and how best to use the rubble of the past to build a good solid foundation. Here is where I felt both the happiest, because the women are truly honest with themselves and each other; and here is also where I felt the length of the book worked against it the most clearly. There wasn;t room to go into the families, or the people they were leaving behind. That was less of an issue, though, than the way the women were ready for that hard, hard, hard task of being vulnerable and honest within their strengthening bond. I can't say it's unlikely...the author's a therapist by trade, she knows better than I do...but I can say that even fifty more pages with some conversations outside their bond would've helped me invest in the resolution.

That said, I give the book as it is a recommendation, tinged with a litte note of caution for the ewww-ick homophobes because there is some steam in here. (I just turned the pages faster.) The story builds its couple's bond well, believably if very quickly, and tells hard emotional truths with honest, sensitive truthfulness.
I'm really glad that Jenn Alexander has more work for me to get acquainted with.

THE SANTA SUIT, sweet Holiday second-chance story

THE SANTA SUIT
MARY KAY ANDREWS
St. Martin's Press non-affiliate Amazon link)
$10.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From Mary Kay Andrews, the New York Times bestselling author of Hello, Summer, comes a novella celebrating the magic of Christmas and second chances in The Santa Suit.

When newly-divorced Ivy Perkins buys an old farmhouse sight unseen, she is definitely looking for a change in her life. The Four Roses, as the farmhouse is called, is a labor of love—but Ivy didn't bargain on just how much labor. The previous family left so much furniture and so much junk, that it's a full-time job sorting through all of it.

At the top of a closet, Ivy finds an old Santa suit—beautifully made and decades old. In the pocket of a suit she finds a note written in a childish hand: it's from a little girl who has one Christmas wish, and that is for her father to return home from the war. This discovery sets Ivy off on a mission. Who wrote the note? Did the man ever come home? What mysteries did the Rose family hold?

Ivy's quest brings her into the community, at a time when all she wanted to do was be left alone and nurse her wounds. But the magic of Christmas makes miracles happen, and Ivy just might find more than she ever thought possible: a welcoming town, a family reunited, a mystery solved, and a second chance at love.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Author Andrews is an established force in romantic-fiction publishing, with thirty-ish successes on her credits. You know, therefore, that you're not going to feel duped or cheated when you read her work. There is no realistic chance you're getting some hyped-up yet unsatisfying work, something you'd look at with frustration as you wondered how to get back those three hours.

What's on offer here is a sweet, unsteamy romantic story about a house, its secrets, and a town full of the kind of people you wouldn't look at twice unless you Believe, like Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. After all, who's to say who's who? The fact that everyone, literally everyone, comes out of this short read with exactly what they need and what the want, well...it's a category romance with a Christmas theme and its title is The Santa Suit. You're getting what you signed up for!

I was drenched in Satan's piss three times (that is, the w-bomb was dropped on my unwilling reader's head) but with a twist: the w-bomber was in all three cases a woman doing that at another woman! So that had the virtue of novelty. It did not make it more pleasant.

There are the expected numbers of miracles, aka coincidences, in the course of the film, I mean novella! There are people doing the right thing grudgingly. but doing it; there are a lot of reminders that this isn't the Big City and everyone knows everyone else. That, mes vieux, is again what you signed up for. And you're going to get your HEA with a heaping tablespoon of sentimentality, too. I can't help myself...I lapped it up, I gurgled with disgust when w-bombed and I squirmed a wee tiny bit when gender politics made me uncomfortable (the Bechdel Test score here is not zero...it's negative). But I lapped it up.

One big reason is that Author Andrews is a seriously experienced wordsmith. I can't quote you any special lines, they're all perfectly adequate and none are lumpenly out of place; they aren't memorable. I didn't go in expecting them to be, so another check in the met-expectations box. I wasn't planning to write a whole review, only a Burgoine, but the presence of the dog Punkin and the four hens (a-calling!, in this case) and the overwhelming presence of Shiny Brite and C9 decorations...well...I was weak.

I love the verve and gusto of people who decorate their fool heads off for the Solstice Holiday, call it Yule or Saturnalia or Christmas. It's a dark, long night and we need the blessèd relief of bright colors and shiny surfaces. In our reads, too. Enjoy this one. Happy Holiday!

SATAN CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN...seriously, you need more?, and MR. FROSTY PANTS, lovely Holiday gay romances

SATAN CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN
CATHERINE LIEVENS
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five, because whatthehell it's the Holidays

The Publisher Says: Dear Satan Claus…

That’s how the letter Satan received starts. The little girl who wrote it asking for her father to be happy again meant it for someone else, and while that’s obvious, Satan doesn’t care. Santa will never find out, as long as Satan’s nosy assistant, Jasper, doesn’t tell him. Satan isn’t sure why he decides to watch Zoe and her dad, except that he’s bored and lonely. He surprises himself when he moves into the house next to theirs and introduces himself as Sam—because he couldn’t exactly give Riley his real name, could he?

Riley has been divorced for years, and he doesn’t have time for a relationship. He has trust issues and no will to get over them, not when his daughter is the center of his life. Then a new neighbor moves in, and he’s adorably awkward and sexy. Riley tries to keep Sam at arm’s length, but he can’t help but fall in love with him, and he’s pretty sure Sam is falling for him, too.

Then Sam confesses his real name is Satan, and that he’s the king of Hell.

THIS WAS A KINDLE FREEBIE ONE DAY. I SCOOPED IT UP THEN.

My Review: Frothy, fun silliness about a kid’s bad spelling...Satan Claus! Heh...leading to the mother of all meet-cutes. Riley’s daughter Zoe wishes for her daddy to smile more and be happy in her Santa letter, delivered to Satan since it was misaddressed. Bored by being the King of Hell, Satan decides to give Zoe her gifts. How to make divorced, gay dad with abandonment and trust issues Riley smile more? Lie to him, ghost him, and make his daughter like the ghoster! Simple, no?

Of course it’s a category Holiday romance, we know there’s HEA at the end. What it entails is no less than a family rapprochement between Satan and one of his brothers (Archangel Gabriel, no less), as well as a new romantic start between Riley, nice guy, and Satan, King of Hell. I must admit I thought the way Riley handled the presence of the King of Hell in his house was...subdued. I myownself would've freaked right out to learn 1) Satan's real and b) his hawtness (see what I did there?) was simping for me.

Gravity-free froth, high-concept silliness, and a pleasant but insubstantial afternoon’s entertainment. There are ZERO winks! Not one! It can be done, M/M romance writers...there is no need to lard the stupid things into your work.

I can see this giving especially religious types a terrible case of collywobbles because it does not take the Devil at all seriously. "There is REAL EVIL in the world! Don't be so flippant!" Yes, we all agree there is real evil...many of us, though, don't think it has horns and red skin. Still, for something set in a religious tradition I don't follow, it was a fun way to spend some screen time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MR. FROSTY PANTS
LETA BLAKE (Home for the Holidays #1)
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five, not *quite* up to a full four

The Publisher Says: Can true love warm his frozen heart?

When Casey Stevens went away to college four years ago, he ghosted on his straight best friend, Joel Vreeland. He hoped time and distance would lessen the unrequited affection he felt, but all it did was make him miss Joel more. Home for the holidays, Casey hopes they might find a way to be friends again. But Joel’s frosty reception reminds Casey of just how hard he had to fight to be Joel’s friend in the first place. It’s going to take a Christmas miracle to get past that cool façade again.

Joel isn’t as straight as Casey believes, and his years of pining for Casey have left him hurting and alone, caring for his abusive father and struggling to get by. Unable to trust anyone except his rescue dog—and with no reason to believe Casey is interested in him for more than a holiday fling—Joel’s icy heart might shatter before it can thaw.

Can Casey and Joel’s love overcome mistrust, parental rejection, class differences, and four long years apart?

Mr. Frosty Pants is a stand-alone, Christmas gay romance by Leta Blake featuring a virgin hero, childhood friends-to-lovers, second chance romance, and romantically steamy scenes.

I RECEIVED THIS FROM MY GOODREADS SECRET SANTA FOR YULE! THANK YOU, KIND ELF.

My Review: Five revolting w-bombs dropped. Why, I wonder, did the m/m romance writing community decide this was somehow okay?

A charmingly typical Holiday-themed Second Chance romance set in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Hallmark Movie Channel plot works exactly as you want, need, and expect. There is explicit sex so it’s not suitable for crossover straight reading, though it’s interesting that the grouchy character is the bottom! I was rooting for the couple to succeed because the family healing that had to come from it was for them both.

I found that I was more engrossed in Joel's struggles than in Casey's...I felt so bad for Joel for going back to the bad places with his "father" to see if he could get at least a crumb. That's terrible, and moving, and so very deeply sad to me. Joel's entire life was a search for connection, and Casey (after forcing him to accept Casey's affection) just ghosts the lad?! But honestly it was very believable, so I can't say more than "how sad and how real."

Worth the time and the effort to read, made of the Right Stuff, and presented with polished and pleasurable style.

RESTORED, another winning entry in Author Joanna Chambers's Enlightenment series

RESTORED
JOANNA CHAMBERS (Enlightenment #5)
Kindle original (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 ebook editions, available now!

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Eighteen years ago, Henry Asquith, Duke of Avesbury had to leave his kept lover, Kit Redford, in order to devote himself to raising his young family. Now, a lifetime later, his children are moving on and for the first time in years, Henry is alone.

During a rare visit to London, Henry unexpectedly happens upon an old friend of Kit’s and learns that Kit did not receive the financial pay off he was entitled to when Henry left him. Instead Kit was thrown out of his home and left destitute. Horrified, Henry begs Kit to see him and allow Henry to compensate him. But Kit, who now owns a discreet club for gentlemen of a certain persuasion, neither needs nor wants Henry’s money.

“Perhaps you should earn the money you owe me the way I had to earn it? On your knees, and on your back, taking my cock like a whore.”

Kit thought he had put his old hurts and grievances about Henry behind him, but when he sees Henry again, he discovers that, not only is the old pain still there, so is the fierce attraction that once burned between them. When, in a moment of fury, Kit demands a scandalous form of penance from Henry, no one is more surprised than Kit when Henry agrees to pay it.

As Kit and Henry spend more time together, they learn more about the men they have become, and about the secret feelings and desires they concealed from one another in the past.

Henry realises he wants to build a future with Kit but can he persuade his wary lover to trust him ever again? And can two men from such different worlds make a new life together?

I RECEIVED A DRC OF THIS TITLE FROM THE AUTHOR. NOW I MUST SAVAGE IT TO PROVE I CAN NOT BE BOUGHT.

My Review: I am much closer to seventy than I am to fifty. As hard as that fact is to swallow...Alanis Morissette and her bloody "Jagged Little Pill" begone!...it is the truth. And a corollary of that truth is that one becomes pretty much invisible at this age. My Young Gentleman Caller, unwilling to lie to my face, spins it as his insurance policy: Pretty young things don't look at me, so he doesn't have to stalk them with murderous intent!

I might be an old bastard, but I'm a *lucky* old bastard. And here I am bragging about it to the world. It feels right to do that in a review of Restored, though, because while neither of the heroes (they are indeed heroes) are anything like as old as I am, they're old for their time (fifty was elderly in Regency times, and Henry's forty-seven) and not slowing down a bit. Henry, Duke of Avesbury, and Christopher Redford shared a passion as young men and, after two decades, find each other and wonderingly work their way through a shared past that never went as either would've wanted it to.

Gawddam, it feels so fucking good to read something Romance-wise that mirrors so many of my own experiences being an old crock!

That's really it, and I ought to belt up and go have some hot milk and toast for my supper, but there is quite a bit to say yet. Henry's companionable marriage ended in tragedy, the death of his young wife. She was his friend; not long after the birth of their fourth child, she revealed her extreme dislike of sex and her unwillingness to bear more children. She was kind and sensible about it, giving Henry complete freedom to meet his needs; that is, so long as he was merely working off his lurid energies, not threatening her position as wife.

Enter (!) Christopher Redford, Kept Boy. The heart (as adults all know to their cost) isn't likely to listen to sensible, reasonable rules, and Henry finds himself approaching a cliff...then his wife throws her imminent mortality into the mix, makes him swear to "put away his toys" (ie leave his belovèd Christopher) in a really denigrating, unkind, and harshly judgmental way. But she's the Wife. Must be obeyed.

And that should've been that.

Was that, for most of two decades. Then Henry, in London from Wiltshire (is that a real place? I knew a guy whose last name was that once), sees a face from his misspent youth while meeting his pregnant daughter for tea. The memories he's never been able to fully repress, the longing for his lost love Christopher, all make the Duke of Avesbury venture to approach their old mutual acquaintance (one of Christopher's fellow courtesans) and beg news of him.

Well. Cat, pigeons, among. Kit, as he is now known, wasn't treated fairly in spite of Henry's very explicit and specific instructions to the contrary. There has been a long, resentful silence on both parts not because either man wanted it that way, but because someone else entirely took it upon himself to interfere. Naturally, neither ever knew this; and each has his lifetime of hurts to hide behind when they see the one face that will always make them smile. But knowing that one still loves is not at all the same as being in that wild, passionate "what, me worry?" zeal-of-the-organs stage of life. Older might not equal wiser, but it sure as shootin' equals warier.

As Kit and Henry circle each other, feinting at presumed weak spots and finding them yielding; shoving back, only to fall and need help up, always willingly, unstintingly given; each needs so badly to protect their loved ones, in fact so much so that they each forget to love back the important one-and-only they have the chance to make their own again. Not for long, though, since they're both in a phase of life where changes are coming ready or not. No one stops the clock.

What matters is what you do with your time, not what time has done to you. Changes? Yes; can, in fact, two scarred and mangled lovers find a new love?

Oh, as to that savaging: Author Chambers has revolted and appalled me. I am foully treated by the refusal, against all possible good taste or common sense, of the Romance Writing Academy to ban outright and for all time the vile, repellent, unnecessary, and lazily unworthy w-bomb from use.

And really? Tom? C'mon. That needed a bigger set-up. *tsk*