Review: Delightful!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 30, 2013
This is not world-shattering literature. It is not a cure for cancer. It is just an absolutely delightful read - a flawless read - and what more can any reader ask?This is the second book by Ms. Maxfield I've read in a day and, I promise you, it's just the second of many to come.Fitz is a world-class pianist who lives a sheltered life in his mother's mansion (a mansion earned by her from one of her many marriages to older, rich men). She is in France, with husband # 8 and Fitz, who has little connection to the real world, is left alone rumbling around the big empty house and taking music classes.Typical of the humor, outlandishness and stunning creativity of this author, the book opens with Fitz unconscious in a dumpster outside a gay bar where he had gone with a new acquaintance from school  - one who had tried to rape him, then knocked him unconscious against a wall and then abandoned him. Fitz is rescued from the dumpster by (you won't believe this), a pair of ghost-lovers from the 1940's, decked out in period finery. They take him home (a "borrowed" home, no less), feed him gourmet cooking and run with him when the house's owners show up.Thus begins an adventure that brings him back to the boy he loved since he was a child - a gorgeous boy who went on to star in a boy band and then finish an MBA to become the top forensic accountant in L.A. The rest is an over-the-top and oh-so-tender story of how they find each other as more than friends - as home.The ghosts are an outrageously funny pair who tend to ballroom dance at the drop of a hat, protect Fitz (and Ari) from a brush with death, and seem to have been drawn to Fitz because he needed them so badly. The back story of the ghosts is a tragic counterpoint to the joyous saga of Fitz and Ari.I read this book almost non-stop. The word that keeps popping into my mind when I think about "Rhapsody" is "delight". My delight as a reader in such a well-written book, the humor, the detail, the pathos and the passion Ms. Maxfield brings to the page.And let me point out the brilliant detail with which she paints scenes, action and characters! There is a brief description of a kaleidoscope that Ari had sent to Fitz when Fitz was but a child, that is so exquisitely written that the instrument itself came off as a work of art, even without the stunning view one gets looking through it.If I could give this book more than five stars, I would. It did something that few M/M Romance novels do these days: it made me smile and laugh, it moved me, and left me grinning from ear-to-ear as I read the last lines of this delightful book.I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I have.