Review: Short Grieving Period for the Dead Lover
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 20, 2012
"The Salisury Key" by Harper Fox is a pretty good gay love story, as these go. It moved along rapidly and was easy reading. The visualization of events, countryside, people and intimacy was first rate.The problems I've noticed with all her gay-themed novels are a) all the main characters are psychologically damaged in some way or other, yet they miraculously recover quickly; b) the sex scenes are always too breathless, intense and "over the top" to hold credibility; c) there's way, way, way too much angst on the part of all the major characters; d) each story has a strong mystery-to-solve element; and e) there is always a meticulously worked out "happy ending" for the main lover-boys. Not quite sappy most of the time, but borderline.Harper does have a wide range and tackles some rather interesting projects for her characters. Here she includes a fair dose of science, archeology, and mystery.In "Salisbury" we have Daniel and Rayne whose frenetic lives populate the pages of this book. I vastly preferred Rayne to Daniel. An interesting twist here is that Fox daringly at the beginning shows a long-term relationship between an older man and a much younger (30 years) man. I did kind of react in shock when Daniel finds it possible to have sex with someone new, a couple days after his partner dies!  Hmmmm.The minor characters are quite minor and less well developed, almost silly sometimes. Working out all the details of the complicated plot requires some tip-toeing through the tulips for the author, but she manages to tie up all the loose ends without the poor reader having to suspend disbelief too often. It's a quick read, not anywhere close to being "literature," but, hey, it's a decent gay love story.  Wonder if she'll ever write about people who are kind of normal, though.I give it a 3.55, rounded up to a 4 for ira sheer 2night entertainment value and appreciation of a readable gay love story that does not solely focus on sex (though there is an abundance of it here).