Review: Excellent Holiday Story - A Total and Complete Delight
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 27, 2012
This holiday novella is a total and complete delight, a tender m/m romance with also a tense little mystery underneath. Lanyon here tells the story of James, an antique book hunter who is on a mission to gauge the validity of a newly discovered novel by Charles Dickens. The owner of the book is a professor from England, strikingly handsome but unfortunately cold and aloof, and he seems to take a fast dislike to James. All seems lost on this mission, and James is settling into the gloomy thoughts of losing his book commission and celebrating a very impoverished Christmas, but surprising things happen to keep pushing them together, and James finds himself discovering far more than a new classic holiday story.A real joy to read, and at some point partway through, I felt a level of unabashed glee that should only be reserved for preschoolers. "Oh boy! Reading is fun!'I also appreciated Lanyon's inclusion of Dickens tropes---the suffering orphan, the shady and unsavory patron, tangled family history, etc. There's also a fun running joke about what few items James has in his fridge (including two eggs and a jar of jam.) I appreciated the small detail of him noshing on jam sandwiches throughout the book.My only wish is that I could have read this first on some rainy day in December with a Stardust martini close at hand, but I guess that's what rereads are for. (Living in Seattle, a rainy December day isn't too hard to find...)And I loved those last few lines. A truly wonderful holiday read. Highly recommended.