Review: I liked it with reservations
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 16, 2010
I really really liked this story up to a certain point. I think Mr. Lanyon's writing matures in every new story he publishes and I really love to watch how he moves away more and more from some m/m romance clishes, how more and more of his characters have ordinary looks, how his characters starting to have some real flaws of character. And I thought this story had all of that. I loved the setting, I loved how he touched on social issues, on horrible conditions of the mines and what it can cause desperate people to do. Really enjoyed it. And yes, I did like the hosts thing even if I am not a big fan of ghosts stories. So you will ask me what about romance? And I have to say that while I wrote earlier that I feel that Mr. Lanyon moves away from some clishes, unfortunately I feel that he overdid it with Julian.Trying to be as ambigious as possible, I think that he would have been vulnerable enough to the reader after we see how whole ghost thing affected him, and I really loved that he was participating in the whole thing even when he knew it was not working. I thought, oh good, he has some real flaws and he is vulnerable in that regard.But did he need to be THAT ill as well? And can we say been there done that? Sorry, I love reading about the guys who have some vulnerabilities, I do NOT like reading about the "guys" who give out to me damsel in distress vibe and by the end of the story Julian certainly gives this vibe to me.I would have given this story five plus stars, unfortunately Julian's needing to be taken care of to that degree quite ruined it for me, so it gets four stars, because I cannot help but compare this amazing writing with so much trash that I have read, but it is really 3.5 stars.