Garrett Leigh, what else?

3:46 pm 20 September 2016

Ok.

Ok.

I just love GL.

Ok?

I don’t know what to say! This book goes so smoothly there is nothing I can tell without squeezing my brains out. I’ll make an effort…

It’s not a mystery I love GL to pieces. And this book has only proved once more why that is. She’s quite a talented author, her words just pour a myriad of emotions with no apparent effort, and still, she amazes me with the characters she builds, and how well they fit together despite everything that drifts them apart.

The only thing Zac and Liam have in common is isolation. Not in the obvious sense, but isolation from emotions, loneliness while in the middle of the crowd, abandonment and hopelessness. Their lives are painted with this grey light that surrounds everything. I could feel the sky was cloudy and that it was raining cats and dogs. Constantly.

Yet there is this glance across a darkened alleyway, and something sparks.

A recognition of sorts. An acknowledgement the other one exists. Seeing each other for real, as nobody else ever did.

GL has practice with characters who make a life “out of their bodies”. We have the Blue Boy series, for once. Here we have a male prostitute, Zac, with a drug addiction he managed to overcome barely months ago after a too risky approach to the limits. Unlike his best friend, to whom he owns his life, and more.

Then we have Liam, a businessman, once surfer, with a comfortable life, a life he used to share with his husband. That was years ago, and he’s still mourning.

But one night, he meets Zac, and nothing will ever be the same.

It begins with sex and it’s sex what bonds them together, and then there is sex to chase off loneliness, and sex for comfort, and sex for love. And sex with love. It was sexy in a quiet way, no mischievous and cheeky interactions, but in a quiet and profound way that touched my heart. It’s like Zac and Liam see under the surface, and that they admit there is no need to hide their inner self under a humorous banter. They just find what they have always wanted, and they embrace it with all their being.

Their story is not meant to be lightweight.

It never got repetitive and tiresome, they just are together, and everything flows like water. As subtle as that. As simple as that.

However, their relationship is not as simple as that. Reality gets in the middle.

It’s not an epic story with great ups and downs, endless angst and heroic attitudes from men who try to escape their destiny, and fail. It’s funny because their lives are not exactly a long quiet road. Heavy shit happens.

Still, I just felt this is just a tale of two men with burdens, and that it takes a peaceful rhythm, despite all the ugliness they may find. Despite the grayness of their existence, a numb day after a numb day, they find the fulfilment and warmth they were looking for.

It’s beautiful.

I really recommend this one.

*****

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