Reviewed by Elizabetta
TITLE: Once Upon a Haunted Moor & Tinsel Fish
SERIES: Tyack & Frayne, books #1 & #2
AUTHOR: Harper Fox
PUBLISHER: Fox Tales (self published)
LENGTH: 80 pages & 97 pages
BLURB:
Once Upon A Haunted Moor:
Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. It’s not life in the fast lane, but he takes it very seriously, and his first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he’s gutted – he’s a level-headed copper who doesn’t believe in such things, and he can’t help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl.
But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee’s insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon’s heart. Son of a Methodist minister, raised in a tiny Cornish village, Gideon has hidden his sexuality for years. It’s cost him one lover, and he can’t believe it when this green-eyed newcomer stirs up old feelings and starts to exert a powerful force of attraction.
Gideon and Lee begin to work together on the case. But there are malignant forces at work in the sleepy little village of Dark, and not only human ones – Gideon is starting to wonder, against all common sense, if there might be some truth in the terrifying legend of the Bodmin Beast after all. As a misty Halloween night consumes the moor, Gideon must race against time to save not only the lost child but the man who’s begun to restore his faith in his own heart.
Tinsel Fish:
Christmas in a Cornish seaside town, bright lights and a hot new romance to ward off the winter storms… What could be finer? But Gideon and Lee’s first festive season together is shockingly interrupted when Lee tries to rid a client’s home of a malevolent presence. The ritual goes wrong, and in its aftermath Lee is strangely altered. As well as dealing with the changes in his lover, Gideon has a sinister thread to follow, linking the haunted house with disappearances among the homeless people of Falmouth.
Can love withstand what looks like a case of possession? As the darkest night of the year comes down, Gideon finds himself locked in a battle to restore his lover’s soul.
REVIEW:
Once Upon A Haunted Moor:
It’s All Hallow’s Eve, the perfect setting for spooks, and goblins and things that go bump in the night. There’s something on the wind-swept moor and in the town of Dark, on the Cornish coast, something that isn’t quite right. And a little girl has gone missing.
It’s Gideon Frayne’s beat, he’s the town copper, born and raised, son of a Methodist minister, estranged from family, lonely and mourning a lost love. But it’s been almost two weeks that the child has been missing and a psychic, Lee Tyack is brought in to help work on the case. Gideon growls and Lee seduces.
Okay, who is this Lee Tyack and how can I get me some? Yeah, I know… he wouldn’t be interested… but what a sweet, generous, sensitive, slightly twitchy (hey, he’s clairvoyant) guy. He walks into Gideon’s life, soothes and comforts, and sweeps the man off his feet. Hardboiled copper, Gideon, within twenty-four hours, doesn’t know what’s hit him, he’s a goner.
Yes, there are spooky weird noises in the night, shufflings and snufflings out on the moor. Something evil is lurking in the small, insular town of Dark and there are stories of a ‘beast’. This feels like a paranormal story… there’s Lee’s ability after all, but the creepy monster on the moor remains vague (and the final comeuppance of the villain, unclear). It’s more the monster within that poses the bigger danger— here, there is more evil that festers in the mind than the dark shadows.
Lovely, lovely writing, descriptive, fluid, flowing. And gets the job done in about eighty pages. Thank god there’re two sequels waiting in the wings and a fourth book on the way (“Kitto”, due 6/21), because I haven’t had nearly enough of Gideon, Lee, and Dark.
Tinsel Fish:
From Halloween to the winter solstice, Gideon and Lee are still very much in awe of this thing between them, still in the honeymoon days of their delicate, quick-fire attraction. On the shortest day of the year, where darkness overwhelms light, the guys stumble onto another anomaly in their community. By now, Gideon is a firm believer in Lee’s extra-sensory abilities, he’s moved from skeptic to protector as he witnesses just how much these ‘gifts’ take a toll on Lee, this man who puts himself in peril to help those in need. Gideon… I love his confusion and how he fights his loneliness, fights to keep Lee close. How Lee is like a cool drink of water in the desert for him. Yet, he knows something is being kept from him.
The dark feel of this is as much about Lee’s secrets— all the things he can’t quite tell Gideon (and us)— as it is about a missing persons’ mystery. I love Lee to pieces, even more than in the first book. He’s one of the most giving, generous people I’ve read in this genre. I love how he sees into the depths of the hunky Gideon. But here, he goes from consoler to needy, and Gideon rises fiercely to the challenge. There is such passion between them… and the ability to hurt. I’m hanging in there for when Lee finally learns to open up.
These guys are delivered to us by a pen so deft and generous, yet never overdone. Somehow it melds together family drama (we finally meet Gid’s parents and brother) and even brings in characters from another book (archeologist, Daniel Logan of “Salisbury Key” makes an appearance). It frustrates somewhat that we are still kept guessing about Lee’s secrets, but I’m still hooked, I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. I like this one even more than the first for its development of the tender, sweet love story. The mystery gives substance to the story, but this is still very much about two men finding their way to each other.
I’ve said it before, will say it again… this is some elegant storytelling, well crafted and satisfying, fitting together the puzzle pieces of community with family, of small-town drama, of sex and love, of a complex, compelling couple A treat to be savored.
RATING:
Once Upon A Haunted Moor :
Tinsel Fish :
BUY LINKS:
Once Upon A Haunted Moor:
Tinsel Fish: