Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Hotel Pens
AUTHOR: Geoffrey Knight
PUBLISHER: Wilde City Press
LENGTH: 83 pages
BLURB:
Travel writer Joe Jordan hasn’t been home to New York since his boyfriend broke up with him. Instead he’s hopped from hotel to hotel, collecting pens like a child in a fairytale might leave a trail of breadcrumbs hoping to find his way back.
But now he has an assignment, an article titled “5 Ways to Rediscover New York.” Being back on his home turf is daunting—until he meets Claude Desjardins, a gay romance translator staying in his hotel who, after a night of near passion, leads Joe on a treasure hunt through Manhattan, writing clues on Joe’s skin using hotel pens.
But it isn’t just New York Joe needs to rediscover.
REVIEW:
Joe Jordan lives a lonely life. He’s a travel writer and doesn’t appear to have a home. He did, and a man, but he lost both due to neglect. He had dreams of a home, a man, and a dog, but also a career and that is all he ended up with. He’s 35 and alone, admitting that the longest conversation he has had recently was with someone working the reception desk in a hotel. He’s from New York but hasn’t spent time there since the end of his relationship. But he heads home to write a story titled “Five ways to rediscovered New York”.
Joe arrives fresh from Australia and checks in to his hotel. He has an encounter with Claude, a lovely Frenchman, when asking for a WiFi code from the reception desk that leads to the best line I’ve seen in a book in a while:
“In the meantime… why waste a perfectly good erection?”
This is just part of a fabulous conversation that has poor Joe blushing and leads us in to a charming, sweet, gentle little story. It’s short, so I won’t say much about the plot, just that Claude leads Joe on an adventure around NYC, by writing messages on his body. For being such a short story, it was surprisingly deep, Geoffrey gets a lot of story in to a small space without it seeming rushed. We get to know Joe through a couple of flashbacks, the book is from his perspective, so we know him best. Claude is a bit of a mystery, but seems like a very nice man. We do get a tragic story from his past that had me getting a little misty eyed. Some of their adventures had me giggling, and introduced a couple of additional characters that were quite fun. And then the ending…. So damn sweet!
Short stories are hard to do well, and this one is absolutely perfect. It only covers a day or so, at the beginning of a relationship, but gives us a nice look in to these two men. It’s not huge, it’s not busy, it’s not frantic, and it wasn’t just sex. Maybe a little insta-love, but they didn’t immediately jump in to bed and swear undying love. It looked like they might, npbut nope! We have some restraint. You know it’s growing between them, but it wasn’t BAM! let’s get married and have babies. The potential is there though. Some short stories leave me wanting more, and feeling unsatisfied. I would be curious to see what happens to Joe and Claude in the future but this was just right as it was. I didn’t feel cheated. It was just enough.
Hotel Pens is a sweet and charming story, with great characters, a creative and enjoyable plot, a little hot sex, with a fantastic ending. I LOVED IT!
RATING: 
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