Review: Lanyon Never Disappoints
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 21, 2014
I don't normally read Novellas. It seems to me that they just don't provide enough runway to fully develop characters. In fact, Lanyon is legendary for developing characters and relationships over entire series of books, such as the Adrien English mysteries.But, having already read all of the Lanyon novels in the Kindle Store, and devoid of new cool gay fiction to read (it's bean a lean month or two), I broke down and read this novella.And I was pretty impressed. Lanyon handled the lack of space and time with a rather wonderful economy of words and feeling. Sean's background - the vitriolic disapproval of his parents when he came out, which scarred him for life - were explained with a few sentences that made the cause of his insecurity abundantly clear, and engendered some real sympathy for this barely-stable, yet talented actor.Living with him is Dan, who was his LAPD bodyguard while he was being stalked, and in many ways, it's the first relationship for both of them. Like most of Lanyon's novels, there's a mystery: the reappearance of the man who stalked him, a man who was supposed to have died while being chased by the police.But the mystery is secondary to the relationship in "The Dark Horse". This is a book about trust - about two men learning what it is to believe in someone you love, to believe unconditionally. The metaphor for trust is the panic attacks Sean has whenever he tries to engage in anal sex - and sees and hears his hateful father telling him how no real man would ever do something so disgusting. Because of his paralyzing fear and self-loathing, Sean is, essentially, a twenty-something virgin.The question is whether Sean will ever trust Dan enough to love him as he needs to love him, and whether Dan will trust Sean enough to believe that he's not falling apart at the slightest provocation and stop handling him with kid gloves.Of course, it is a Gay Romance, and Lanyon ensures that both the mystery is solved and both men begin to take the steps they need to learn to rely on trust and their love. It's an extremely well-written book about love, and the trust that constitutes its foundation.Lanyon never disappoints, even in the truncated form of the Novella.