Love is an Open Road: The End
Yes! This should be the last time you see that shitty picture of a road! I’ll bet you’re all very excited to hear that, if nothing else.
Well, this post includes the last three stories, as produced by the M/M Romance Goodreads Group for their Don’t Read in the Closet Event. I saved the best for last, too.
Give an Inch by KD Sarge: This was a sweet short about a movie star who moves to a small town to get away from it all, and then has kittens. I’m not sure that I can buy a small town never having heard of dyslexia in this day and age, but otherwise it’s a basic feel-good story of unexpected love. Also, kittens.
In Heaven and Earth by Amy Rae Durreson: An amazing sci-fi offering by one of my favorite authors. Lots of unexpected turns in the plot, and it was really refreshing how the characters figured out actual realistic solutions to the problem, even if that meant saving everyone else in the universe (but not themselves). Plus the dynamic between the two MCs was fantastic, and the Enemy was fascinatingly creepy.
Deep Magic by Gillian St. Kevern: This was a bit of a risk to save for the very last, because while I loved The Biggest Scoop, it could have been a fluke. And now I’m happy to tell you that it absolutely wasn’t. Deep Magic is, by very brief description, the tale of a man and his merman. But it really masters its trope, and goes way beyond that into ocean politics, family drama, and ancient Welsh magic. The characters grow, the mystery is slowly revealed, the flashbacks are kept well in check, the conflict resolutions were foreshadowed (but subtly enough that I didn’t fully guess them), and a few things are left unsolved because life is never quite that neat and tidy. It was just a very wonderful read, and the prefect note to end my journey down this long (if open) road.
It looks like I read 124 of the LiaOR stories over…a few months. And so far I’ve read 69 books of my 100-book goal, which is kind of impressive, if you ask me. I’ve found a few new authors, revisited a few old ones, and I’m looking forward to not reading Don’t Read in the Closet books for a few weeks at least (months, right? it’s a summer thing?). I can take a crack at that pile of paper books that’s been slowly growing on my shelf!
