Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  Where Angels Fear

AUTHOR:  Jay Lewis Taylor

PUBLISHER:  Manifold Press

LENGTH:  63 pages

RELEASE DATE:  May 1, 2018

BLURB:  

Invalided home from the Navy, Richard is safe out of harm’s way, at home in Lincoln with his parents. It’s not what he expected, but now that he’s met Les life looks interesting again. However, the war isn’t over yet, and Les is a bomber pilot with the RAF. Richard may still have something to lose, after all.

This volume also contains another story, The Man Who Came to Dinner.

REVIEW:  

Where Angels Fear is a short story set near the tail end of World War II, centered around Richard–a man invalided home after getting Polio while in the Navy–and Les–an RAF bomber pilot–who meet by chance one day and end up falling for each other.

While suffering from many of the issues that plague short stories on the whole–the constricted time frame means that not a lot of page space is allocated to building up a connection, instead just going with “you are hot…so I’m going to fall in love with you now”–I found this to be nonetheless a nicely written story. I would have loved to know more about both of these characters, but what we are given was enough to hold this story together and keep me interested in where it was going. I also really liked the direction the author decided to go in regards to sex in this book. It is not conventional to m/m romance, but that is what made it all the better for me.

Mostly my issues with this story come from the fact that not enough time was devoted to really explaining some of the things that happened in the story. There was this one scene where the guys pick up two lady friends and go home to hang out but when they get there everyone seems all cool with Richard and Les going to have sex upstairs…during which time it is suggested that the ladies were doing the same thing. Which, yeah, I’m ok with, but I don’t remember any real conversation leading up to this point hinting at anything like that. But, then again, I was kinda tired when I read this last night so maybe I missed it? This probably wouldn’t have been a big deal to me if I had some clue that the girls knew what was going on and were totally happy to have an excuse to have some make-out time of their own. But as it is, I didn’t even think the girls knew each other before Richard and Les introduced them, and it seemed to come way the fuck out of nowhere.

The rushed nature of the relationships, while certainly not my favorite thing, where at least a tad bit more understandable here since I am assuming in a time where there is a very good chance that you might not actually live past tomorrow you have to take everything you are given with both hands and hope for the best. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked more there on page, but at least I can understand the motivations of the characters in the story.

There is also at the end a 15-ish page short story that is very very tangentially related to Where Angels Fear (one of the characters is briefly mentioned). I’m not going to give it a full review, other than to say that I found it interesting, but there wasn’t really enough there to get me further than that. I wouldn’t be opposed to reading a fuller version at some point, though.

One the whole I can’t say you must go out and buy this right this second, but if you do happen to pick it up I don’t think you will be disappointed. Though I will warn that it ends on a bit of  an ambiguous HFN ending. The war is still going on by the time the story concludes, so I really can’t say it was going to get much more than that, though.

RATING:  

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