REVIEWED BY DANIELLE
TITLE: Change of Fortune
AUTHOR: A. Morell
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 76 Pages
BLURB:
Tomoki Yonemura, vocalist with popular British rock band Traction Yen, is celebrating New Year’s Eve in Japan during their tenth anniversary tour when he pulls a fortune at a temple. He thinks nothing of its promises for love in the new year—until back home in London, he meets Alex MacKinzey, a gruff auto mechanic who helps him out of a tight spot.
Neither expects the strength of love that develops throughout the year, but it will be put to the test as Tomoki’s fame clashes with Alex’s insecurities. Fortune brought them together, but will it also tear them apart?
REVIEW:
In this story that is part of Dreamspinners Heartwarming collection we get acquainted with Tomoki and Alex.
The story starts out kind of “in your face” and you need to catch up a bit while reading to get into it. But the characters of Tomoki and the other band members are really likable and well written. Four members in the band and all four are gay men and three out of four have Japanese roots.
The fortune Tomoki picks at the temple is significant for the story, unfortunately not in the nicest way, in my opinion. The dates mentioned in the fortune are used like a summary for the story and that I think is a miss as the story on it’s own is really refreshing, has a nice storyline, nice characters and has a lot of potential.
The story runs quickly and could have benefited from a bit more time and expansion. The end is sweet and appropriate and you wish both Tomoki and Alex a very happy life together but also leaves you wondering how they are going to get that living such different lives?
If you are looking for a simple story with nice characters and a little bit of drama you can easily read this and grow fond of its characters as I did.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press
ADVENT CALENDER EVENT
Dreamspinner Press and The Blog of Sid Love bring to you an opportunity where you get to win a free set of DSP’s “Heartwarming” Advent Calender 2013. Yes! The full set with 31 stories including contributions from authors like Andrew Grey, Cardeno C., Grace R. Duncan, and many more…
If you wish to enter yourself into this contest, all you have to do is comment on every advent event post we make each day till the end of this month. Look out for titles with “Advent Calender Event” mentioned in them (such as this one) and the posts will be reviews on each and every story from this anthology.
The contest will end on 1st January, 2014 and the winners will be announced on the 2nd of January.
So, good luck to you all and Happy Holidays!
Sounds interesting. Thanks for the review!
I do like stories with disparate jobs. Thanks formthe review
Thanks for the review. I think I’ll like this one. 🙂
I remember when I was younger and very impressionable, I’d eat up fortunes and horoscopes thinking every one actually applied to me. I’m so glad I outgrew that stage! I look forward to reading this. I love band mate stories and I think this would be my first with Japanese characters.
Tough decisions. Thanks for the insight.
The cover is so lovely.