Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Sky Full of Mysteries
AUTHOR: Rick R. Reed
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 220 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 14, 2018
BLURB:
What if your first love was abducted and presumed dead—but returned twenty years later?
That’s the dilemma Cole Weston faces. Now happily married to Tommy D’Amico, he’s suddenly thrown into a surreal world when his first love, Rory Schneidmiller, unexpectedly reappears.
Where has Rory been all this time? Has he time-traveled? What happened to him two decades ago, when a strange mass appeared in the night sky and lifted him into outer space? Rory has no memory of those years. For him, it’s as though only a day or two has passed.
Rory still loves Cole with the passion unique to young first love. Cole has never forgotten Rory, yet Tommy has been his rock, by his side since Rory disappeared.
Cole is forced to choose between an idealized and passionate first love and the comfort of a long-term marriage. How can he decide? Who faces this kind of quandary, anyway? The answers might lie among the stars….
REVIEW:
I’m conflicted. I love this author, and I love most of his books, but I’m not sure on this one. I think the why is clear in my mind, but I’m not sure. I’ll explain below.
In this book, Mr. Reed tells the story of a young gay couple, just starting out their lives together. One day one of the two young men, Rory, stops to pee beside a dumpster in an alley on his way home. Then there is a bright light, and when he wakes up he is in the same alley, but it is twenty years later and he thinks it is the next morning.
The other young man, Cole, is the one we spend most of the time with in the story. He is left not knowing what happened to Rory. There is no sign of him, he disappeared while Cole was at work and no one ever sees him again… well at least for twenty years. I felt for Cole and his decline into apathy.
The other person in the story, Tommy, was almost an innocent bystander. He met Cole because of the disappearance of Rory, and it appears they have had a great life since they finally worked through Cole’s grief. We only know that because we have some brief backstory told at the beginning of the current day half of the book. Cole and Tommy are an old married couple now, together for nearly twenty years. So, what will happen now that Rory is back?
I know… that is all kind of a rehash of the blurb. I liked the book and read it through in one sitting, but the ending left me a little off. And then I realized why. It was because the story loosely resembled a movie from the 80’s that I’ve seen several times over the years. In that movie, Flight of the Navigator, a boy is taken on board an alien ship and when he wakes up in the same spot, eight years have passed, and everything has changed. He also doesn’t remember anything and runs home, but strangers are living in his house and his family is gone. He eventually finds them, but life isn’t the same. He no longer fits. In the end, he makes the same decision Rory makes in this story. Yes, this one was different, it had three gay guys, but it also had the aging grief-stricken mother, the alien aspect, the time dilation, etc.
Overall, I would say this one left me a little disappointed. I liked the story but didn’t love it.
RATING: 
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