'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 25

Short Stories 366:341 — “Ten Shipwrecked Books,” by Renée Dahlia

[image error]Today’s holiday novella is found in an anthology of holiday novellas where the titles play a little bit on the Twelve Days of Christmas, 12 Rogues of Christmas. I was lucky enough to be able to ask Renée Dahlia about this story, and she gave me the précis and the “where it came from” and I admit I totally went to her novella first instead of reading the anthology in order like I usually do.

I was doing research on queer history for my book Her Lady’s Honor and reading about lots of queer artists and writers who spent time travelling around Europe between the 1700s and 1930s. Ebony proposed this anthology and the two ideas kind of fell into place. My story in this anthology is about a bisexual hero who gets banished to Europe after being caught kissing a man. The book opens when he is summoned home. He is shipwrecked and ends up on a Spanish beach. He meets the heroine who has taught herself English from books stored in washed up luggage, and the hero has a brilliant idea. She’d be the perfect Countess; someone who would both stand up to his mother who shunned him and be exactly who his mother wouldn’t have chosen. His plan falls apart when they arrive back in England. No spoiler, but his mother is redeemed, the hero falls in love with the heroine.

And yes, my research has gifted me with way too many book ideas. As a bisexual person, it’s been really rewarding to learn more forgotten and erased histories, none of which were taught at school. I’m sure I’d have been more focused in history if queer history was part of the curriculum!

If you follow my blog at all, you’ve heard me talk about exactly those frustrations when it comes to history and the non-inheritance of our stories, and how nervous I can get reading historical fiction because of either (a) our erasure or (b) the endless misery that seems to be the assumed “normal” of queerness in history, despite romance being the Happy-Ever-After/For-Now genre. Finding the balance between a sense of realism and that optimism the genre has baked into the contract isn’t always easily found. That said? I sank right into “Ten Shipwrecked Books” with a contented sigh. First off, Sofia is just such a wonderful character I was rooting for her from step the first, and while I took a little longer to warm to Rupert (he doesn’t tell Sofia nearly enough about what she’s in for), his heart was so obviously in the right place by the end of the tale I couldn’t begrudge him, either.

As a holiday story, the holidays themselves don’t feature beyond it being December, but that’s not a big deal, and honestly I think in this case there was so much going on that the backdrop of the time of the year was just enough. Rupert trying to out manoeuvre plays his brother and mother hadn’t even made yet came up against unexpected barriers—one bittersweet, one genuinely moving—and though there’s a redemptive arc, it didn’t feel hammered home as a “family is everything” so much as an extra layer of historical reality, which I really appreciated. Most of all, I left the Lord and Lady Stanmore with a genuine feeling they were going to do the very best they could to make the world a better place, and I love that feeling in historical fictions.

Short Stories 366:340 — “Four, Eggs, Sugar and Magic,” by Daniel de Lorne

[image error]This short story was a freebie I received for signing up for de Lorne’s newsletter, and it’s a cute holiday story, sweet in the whole but served with a thick wedge of angst. The story hits the ground running, with compassionate—and fledgling witch—Will baking some cookies for the local queer shelter and trying to work some luck, love, and health magic into the cookies to give the kids an edge. Unfortunately, an ill-timed received text from his ex fouls his mood—and the magic—which he doesn’t realize until his hunky roommate has eaten one of each of the cookies and starts to suffer calamitous luck almost immediately.

Realizing that the love cookie is next, and more terrifying, the health cookie after that, Will comes out to his roommate as being magic between bouts of terrible luck, and tries to get them to someone who will know how to reverse the spells before it’s too late. And then the love cookie curse hits, and it all hits the fan. We learn more about Cal, Will’s ex, and there’s a lot to learn: the man was an emotionally abusive asshole, to put it mildly, and things get more complicated when the love curse whammies the roommate and Will, but ultimately, as this is a holiday romance, the fellas find their way through the disasters, fix the broken magic, and have a few romantic revelations along the way.

As I said, this was cute and fun alongside the buckets of angst. My only sad note was Will deciding that magic wasn’t for him at the end—that felt like a Cal-Will thing to decide, if that makes sense, a decision from someone who thinks they can’t learn to do better because they’re hopeless or something. That said, I’d happily read another tale of another year’s holiday hijinks (maybe a spell working too well?), which probably colours my take on the tale.

This story was a part of the Dreamspinner holiday advent calendar package, and given Dreamspinner’s refusal to pay authors and ongoing troubles throughout 2019-2020, I’m not going to suggest you pick this title up from them, but rather check out Daniel de Lorne’s website and sign up for his newsletter.

Short Stories 366:339 — “Making the Naughty List,” by Daryl Banner

[image error]By now it’s probably clear how much I love romance novellas with a dash of magic mixed in, and by now it’s probably beyond clear how much I love finding #ownvoice queer romance. When a discussion online about the different ways queer and nonqueer people react to popular media about queerfolk not written by queerfolk led to a wonderful conversation, I ended up learning about Daryl Banner (I know, I know, late to the party, the guy has a large following for both his romances and his dystopias). Seeing a holiday novella meant I could jump right in.

A sugar-cookie sweet and tied-up-in-a-ribbon HEA novella, “Making the Naughty List” has so many of my favourite checkboxes: we meet Daniel, a guy who is trying so hard to do right by his family but they don’t realize (or don’t care to realize) they’re squashing him down. He’s having the worst day on his way to his family holiday, but then a series of chance encounters with a really, really attractive man who seems to pop up just when Daniel needs him sets him on a slightly different path. He even offers Daniel three wishes, which Daniel laughs off—but he does speak them aloud. And that’s where the magic kicks in. (My only (tiny) complaint was wanting the third wish “freedom” allusion to play out in a different way, but I promise it’s a tiny, tiny quibble and I don’t imagine most people would feel the same, I’m just Mr. Magic sometimes.)

Daniel coming into his own was such a lovely little arc, with him being honest with his family alongside his family realizing they’d short of shunted him to the side. I also really appreciated the cookies as a nice thematic element paralleling Daniel’s optimism and faith, and the inclusion of some realities—this is the thing I always appreciate most in #ownvoice writing—like grandparents who “forget” his queerness every year. There’s definitely enough sizzle for those who like their romances on the erotica side, but that’s alongside a truly cute “fake boyfriend” (with magic) plot, and the ending and epilogue draw this further into a fully fledged out HEA for those who want more than a HFN (I’m good either way). Definitely a super-cute, uplifting, and peppy little holiday cookie of a story.

Short Stories 366:338 — “A Second Chance Road-Trip for Christmas,” by Jackie Lau

[image error]One of the best things about romance, in my opinion, is the tropes. They’re wonderful little frameworks upon which romance authors spin wonderful stories about relationships and characters, and add to that happy-ever-after or happy-for-now promise while letting you know some of the flavour of what you’re in for. I bumped into A Second Chance Road-Trip for Christmas last year, and it takes the second-chance trope, pairs it up with the holiday setting, and tosses in a forced-proximity spark to set things going, and it does exactly what it sets out to do with complete charm.

Greg Wong and Tasha Edwards were high school sweethearts and their relationship back then was strong. It only really ended because they were leaving for university and they didn’t think they could keep things going hours apart in different cities. Now, somewhat rigid Greg and far-more-relaxed-and-spontaneous Tasha end up in the same car, heading back to their little home town of Mosquito Bay for the holidays, and despite Tasha swearing off every moving backwards (and going back to a former ex is definitely moving backwards, to her mind) and Greg finding comfort in order and Tasha begins their trip by being twenty-odd minutes late, the two are definitely still sparking.

Sparks turn to real—and needed—heat when they end up stranded in a hotel with no heat nor power (and only one bed), but can two people with very different outlooks on life and a failed relationship in the past give it another shot and have it work? Well, this is romance, so of course they can, but it’s the journey that’s the joy as much as the destination, and I loved how Lau made their personalities and experiences lead to the will-they-won’t-they? rather than a miscommunication or outside forces.

When I reached out to Jackie Lau about the first book in the series, A Match Made for Thanksgiving, she was kind enough to give me little “where did it come from?” notes for all four. To whit:

I wrote a Christmas novella with the “there’s only one bed” trope in 2018, and decided to make it a yearly tradition, so this is my second “there’s only one bed” Christmas novella! Also features some very Canadian treats: Coffee Crisp and Timbits, to go along with the butter tarts and Nanaimo bars in the first book in the series. The hero and heroine are both engineers, inspired by the fact that my degree is in engineering.

Short Stories 366:337 — “Tinsel,” by Kris Bryant

[image error]What do you get when you add a fluffy silver kitten, a recently dumped lesbian who’s (rightfully) grumpy about her ex dating someone she has to see at work every day, and a pretty veterinarian who has a tendency to turn meet-cutes into meet-spills?

“Tinsel.” You get “Tinsel.” Tinsel’s is Kris Bryant’s lovely little holiday novella that came out last year. When I read it over the course of a couple of evenings, I had zero trouble sliding right into commiseration with Jessica. She has every darn right to be miserable and cranky, and I do love me a good Grinch character. I also like that she was 100% aware she was being a complete jerk to everyone around her, but feeling so beyond frustrating with, well, everything that it took her a while to put on the breaks and stop herself.

Taylor is a gentle, patient sort of romantic interest, though, and when you’ve got a wee cat helping out in the matchmaking department, things are definitely going to turn out okay. This was a quick, fun, light read with a grumpy-ass heroine I really enjoyed. Definitely going on my re-read list for when I want a little bit of feline joy.

Short Stories 366:336 — “By Chance, in the Dark,” by Matthew Bright

[image error]I’m sure by now it’s no secret that I love retellings of holiday tales, and this one, from Matthew Bright’s Stories to Sing in the Dark, is a favourite of mine. It’s also no secret I love Matthew Bright’s work, so putting both together? It’s like Christmas just for me!

Or, well, it’s a retelling of A Christmas Carol. And it’s not just for me, if you grab yourself a copy. Told though a gay lens, this version of the tale’s iteration of the ghosts of Christmas had me grinning and smiling from their first appearance.

You got a love snappy gay icons ghosting out and telling Scrooge to get his head on straight. Or, not straight. You know what I mean. Either way, the ghosts are a highlight for me, and then what comes after is the queer cheery on top.

As a fair warning, “By Chance, in the Dark” isn’t as happy a tale as A Christmas Carol, but the tangle of why Scrooge is so cold to everyone, most especially his son, Tim (that’s right, his son Tim) is freaking sweet. Tim’s friend Robert (yeah, “friend”) is the bone of true contention, but as the ghosts play out Scrooge’s life, the reader starts to see the reasons behind the reasons, and in Bright’s wonderful mix of humour and snark, the reveal is a lovely one.

Also, I was lucky enough to grab Matt for a quick “Where did this one come from?” chat, and here we go:

I wrote this story at Christmas at a writer’s retreat in a haunted house. The owner’s instructions were arcane — drive past the roman burial ground and turn left at the oak grove –but we made it just as dark drew in. At the door, the key was not in its promised location and our phones had no reception. “Let’s split up,” we said, as one traditionally does in these situations. “One of us can go knock on the door of that creepy cottage up there on the hill…” Which was how we came to convince ourselves the house was haunted before we’d even stepped through the door, and we only got giddier with it through the weekend. The straight men amongst our group sensibly claimed their rooms and got to work, whilst the rest of us claimed a dormitory room that we immediately christened the ‘gay annexe’. We got to telling ghost stories until late in the night, but when the house was dark in the small hours and the door started opening by itself, unease crept in on ghostly feet.

At some point we also wrote some stuff, and By Chance, In The Dark is the story I limped through. And I do mean limped; writing it was like pulling teeth and I’ve never hated the writing process more. When I finished it I absolutely despised it, suffering badly from the classic writer-trap of sizing up a story against the perfect specimen you’d imagined in your head before you set pen to paper. For ages it was by far my least favourite story I’d ever written, until I reread it while compiling this collection and discovered, having now totally forgotten whatever I had intended the story to be originally, that I was actually rather taken with it after all.

— Matthew Bright

Short Stories 366:335 — “The Shield Maiden,” by Alyxandra Harvey

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Before anything else, I shall reiterate something I’ve said more than once: I hate zombies. I have no rational reason for this, beyond their annoying ability to get into my head (ha) and cause nightmares, and the way so many stories around zombies operate on the “poor choice” principle of plot (ie: people have to make really poor choices for the stories to go they way they do), but there it is again: I hate zombies. “The Shield Maiden,” found in Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories, has zombies, and… I really liked the story. I just wanted to put that in perspective.

It’s probably because the zombies are more-or-less a side-effect of the tale, but we begin with an archeologist “working” (ie: unpaid volunteering) at labelling and organizing bone, metal, and wood fragments from a dig somewhere, rather than hanging out with her much more social friend Poppy. She’s trying to dodge the smarmy security guard, get some work done, and is really, really not planning on accidentally encountering the walking dead, nor on suddenly transforming into a shield-maiden with a magical axe. Oh, and also there’s a polar bear that might be there to eat her, or might be there to help here. It’s not totally clear yet.

This is a romp of a story, and the revelations come with little snippits of a past Viking group on a journey to Canada to deal with a terrible curse. Harvey also sets up a red herring or two on the way to the ultimate villain of the piece, and between the archeologist and her friend Poppy’s banter throughout, the tone is light and funny even as zombies are trying to eat them. This one felt so visual I could easily imagine it as a Netflix show, frankly, with all the beats and twists of a fun two-hour show.

Short Stories 366:334 — “A Perfect Holiday Fling,” by Farah Rochon

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Part of the reason I decided to do this project this year—which is closing down on the last month, yikes!—was to make sure I took a long hard look at my backlog of novellas, novelettes, short stories, collections, magazines, and anthologies and pay attention to them. To stop buying so many more, and actually read the ones I had. Fun fact: that “stop buying so many more” part totally didn’t happen, but I have cut a swath through my backlog and it turned out I’d had this one in my collection for seven freaking years. Not that it wasn’t worth the wait, because “A Perfect Holiday Fling” is wonderful, but seven years. What was I thinking hanging on to this one for so long?

The set-up here is a nice two-pronged approach of two people at a bit of a crossroads moment. We meet Callie Webber, veterinarian, and it’s pretty quickly clear that the small-town is having a pretty small-town effect on her: her husband left her for someone else, and she was already the woman who lost her parents to an accident, so there’s a whole lot of pity and/or trying-to-set-her-up going on, and Callie’s about at the end of her tether with all that. She’s even considering moving to somewhere where she wouldn’t have to run the entire business herself. With that potential move on her plate, a gorgeous temporarily available man and a quick fling doesn’t seem like a bad idea, no?

Well, said gorgeous man is a Navy pilot, Stefan, who is in town for a few months to look after his nephew while his sister is deployed, and he’s waiting to get news of his own that could end his Navy career. With both of these two in a place where “passing in the night” is pretty much all that’s on the menu, they fall into whatever feels good and then, of course, it feels too good. They’re getting Christmas trees, adopting kittens, spending time together that scorches as well as soothes, and soon it’s pretty clear neither of them managed to hold to their “no strings, short-term-fling” scenario, and have feelings. But how do you make it work? Well. Rochon delivers a lovely ending that felt Goldilocks perfect, a “just right” solution that I really appreciated. I also liked how traumas were touched upon and given weight without derailing the lighter mood and overall charm of the novella.

I won’t be waiting seven more years to dive further into this series.

Short Stories 366:333 — “A Christmas Miracle,” by Fiona Riley

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Rounding out the trio of awesome women-loving-women holiday romance novellas in All I Want for Christmas is Fiona Riley’s “A Christmas Miracle” and once again, I have to underline just how much this book was the low-angst, warm-simmer anthology I needed so very much at the time I read it. This time, we get a Grinch going head-to-head with a Christmas Queen, and I was on board pretty much from the moment it began, where the Grinch in question, Mira Donahue, is suddenly short-staffed during the holiday rush at the Mirage, the Best-in-Boston bar she owns and operates. I worked retail for a couple of decades and let me tell you, if you want my empathy as a reader for your character, this is a short, immediate way to my heart. Retail holiday season is awful. Now, Mira has more than just the seasonal rush as the source of her holiday malaise, so even the stoutest of Christmas Champions couldn’t begrudge her a little No-ho-ho.

Well, except maybe Courtney, who is planning her company’s holiday party and wants it to be so perfect it’ll land her the transfer to the event-planning side of the business where she really wants to be and is totally the right person to shine. Courtney has holiday ringtones. Courtney has a list of holiday-themed drinks she wants Mira to have at the party. Courtney likes white garland with lights. In short, Courtney is just that Christmas Champion, and it definitely doesn’t hurt that Mira and Courtney end up doing some massive, high-chemistry flirting before either of them realizes they’re each other’s business meeting. Oops. (This is a Fiona Riley story, so naturally there’s some off-the-charts chemistry and sizzle.)

For fans of holiday tropes, I have two delightful phrases to offer up on this particular holiday cookie plate: snowed in for Christmas is the first, and there’s only one bed is the second. Oh, and if that’s not enough (it’s totally enough) can I add the final revelation of Mira’s dislike of the holidays is just… I mean… GAH. I loved it. Alongside the aforementioned trademark sizzle Riley brings to all her romances, this one definitely hits all the right notes for the holidays, and closes out the trio on a wonderful, happy note, and let me just a wee bit sad the ride was over. I loved all three of these novellas, and I can imagine them going into my holiday rotation next year as low-to-no-angst re-reads. Just go pre-order the whole collection already, because it’s magical.

I met Fiona Riley a few years ago at a Bold Strokes Writing retreat, and as a fun fact, she’s the person “my” Fiona is named for in my own holiday novellas, as she gave me the nudge I needed to try to find my own holiday novellas a home. So I asked her “where’d this one come from?” and here’s the answer:

Have you read Bet Against Me yet? I ask because the inspiration for this novella came from that novel.

I don’t want to give away too many spoilers but Mira, and specifically her bar, are important as characters and scenes in that story. In fact, every book in the Bet Series will feature scenes at Mirage. It’s their local, high end, bougie hang out spot. The Mirage is as much a character as any I’ve written thus far.

I used some of the best bars in the Seaport of Boston as a physical reference, taking some of my favorite aspects—the tall ceilings, mix of industrial steel and old wooden charm of the historic old buildings of the renovated shipping buildings in that area that are hundreds of years old. I detail the architecture of the Mirage more in the first Bet book. I knew that the bar (and Mira) were going to need their own story the moment I decided upon a name and location.

Long story short—The Mirage is the backdrop for some amazing moments for my Gamble and Associates colleagues, and Mira was too interesting to leave as a background character. Plus, Courtney is adorbs, right?

—Fiona Riley

Short Stories 366:332 — “Mangos and Mistletoe,” by Adriana Herrera

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The circles involved in the Venn Diagram of “Mangos and Mistletoe” are all basically things I adore: Baking? Check. Only one bed? Check. Two people having a bit of a disaster-cute? Check. Revealed depths that bring them together? Check. I could go on, but the short version is Adriana Herrera would be hard pressed to put more things I adore into a single novella, and so I dove in and basically just kept going until I was done. Both the women in this women-loving-women holiday romance are intriguing and draw the reader right in, but wow do they get off on the wrong foot with each other.

The set-up is simple enough: a baking competition, hosted this year in Scotland, which pairs expert bakers with talented amateurs and then sets them up with daily “one couple must go!” eliminations. Think “Great British Bake-Off” but with two chefs per team, and only four teams. It just happens this year there are two Dominican women among the candidates, and of course the organizers of the show want to capitalize on that, so they place them together. Which would be great, except they basically hate each other from their first interaction.

The whys of this are the meat of the story, which I won’t ruin, but I really appreciated that both of their reasons were completely valid, and especially in the case of Kiskeya, also vitally important. I appreciated the realism in one character who faces the frustration that comes from having a connection to a culture that also refuses to respect your queerness. That the two had varied experiences from the same source was real and three-dimensional, and really added to the story. The sizzle that came from their friction-and-desire, however, was also off the charts, so the ongoing twisting of the heat a little bit higher every moment through the competition was fantastic. Ultimately, the ending delivered a bump that was enough to satisfy lovers of angst, but didn’t take so long as to leave those of us who like lighter fare too far removed from the joy and heat of the tale. I really enjoyed this one.