Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Angel Voices
AUTHOR: Rowan Speedwell
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 56 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 28, 2016
BLURB:
On a frigid winter night, college freshman Will stumbles into the shelter of a church during choir practice. His father has just discovered that Will is gay, and has beaten him and thrown him out of the house. But right now Will’s interested only in getting warm.
Will’s college roommate Quinn is a soloist in the choir, which is practicing for a Christmas program. He discovers Will in the church—and his friend’s condition. Will, who has grown up in a repressed environment, including church school, an abusive father and a passive mother, is taken aback by Quinn’s enthusiasm and determination to take care of him.
Does Will have a future after all, especially one that will include Quinn?
REVIEW:
I quite enjoyed this short story about family drama and abuse. I do have to say though that it could oh so easily have been a full-length novel. The story was there, the characters were there, the possibilities were there, but they were all a little truncated for my tastes.
We meet Will when he is stumbling through the freezing cold. He has been severely beaten and has walked about 10 miles wearing only a jean jacket. He had a scarf but nothing on his hands. He sees a church with an open door and stumbles in out of the cold and collapses in the back pew.
In an overly convenient coincidence, his college roommate Quinn just happens to be there practicing for the Christmas show and when Quinn finds Will, he and others get Will to the hospital. But Will won’t let them call the cops or his family, and for good reasons, since it was his father who beat him up after he discovered he was gay.
So…most of that was in the blurb and there is more to the story, but not a lot I can say without doing spoilers. There was some insta-lust in the story, which kind of fell flat to me because Will was so severely injured that it didn’t seem plausible. I loved Quinn’s family, especially his grandmother. In my opinion the author did herself a disservice by stopping the story where she did. It could very easily have kept going.
The story was well written, but again, I would have liked it to be expanded for this second release. It was good, but could have been much better with another hundred to hundred and fifty pages added.
RATING: 
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