This week we have two old favourite gay romances I’ve rediscovered in audio by Harper Fox and Z. A. Maxfield and a brilliant dystopian sci-fi with a tentative background sapphic love interest by Micaiah Johnson.
Seven Summer Nights by Harper Fox (audio)
Another comfort-read for me that I have discovered included with my renewed Audible subscription. Beautifully narrated by Chris Clog, it’s a two-part novel set just after World War 2. Archie is a car-mad vicar without vocation. Rufus is a disgraced, shell-shocked archaeologist sent to investigate his church. It’s a story evocative of the shattered period after the war ended, bombed out houses still standing stark in London streets, men and women bent out of shape by years of fighting trying to fit back in to a more ‘normal’ life. Rufus and Archie are both damaged and hurt in different ways and Harper Fox’s delicate, precise writing paints them as perfect creatures with depth of character and emotion. The rural idyll of Archie’s village is laid over the top of past horrors in the same way the veneer of normality is starting to be laid over the horrors and displacement of the war. It’s one of my favourite books and I really recommend it, both in written form and narration.
The Long Way Home by Z. A. Maxfield (audio)
I really love these ‘cops and psychics’ stories and am digging into as many as I can find at the moment. This one has a big hurt-comfort plot as Kevin, an ex cop who has become psychic because of an accident, tries to help cop Connor track down a child murder. Things are complicated because Connor’s childhood boyfriend was also taken and murdered by the same person. (I don’t think this is a spoiler, it’s pretty obvious right from the start where it’s going). Both men are vulnerable and hurting and the audio just hit the spot for me when I picked it up on Audible Whispersync. Recommended.
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Wonderful far-future multiple worlds story. A brilliant scientist on Earth Zero (Our world? Who knows?) has discovered how to slip people between universes that have a similar vibration to ours…ie, that aren’t too different. But people can only traverse to another universe if their counterpart there is dead. Climate deterioration has split the world–all the worlds accessible to our characters–into haves and have-nots. And because the have-nots are less likely to survive in each world–poor food, no protection against the heat of the sun, poisoned water–they tend to be the traversers. There’s a fantastic plot, a tentative background sapphic love story and brilliant worldbuilding, all wrapped up in truly lyrical prose.
That’s all for this week!