Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Holidays in Blue

AUTHOR:  Eve Morton

PUBLISHER:  Carina Press

LENGTH:  207 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 7, 2020

BLURB:

Sometimes it takes a little ice to discover a whole lot of heat.

Cosmin Tessler is going home for Christmas. Eric Campbell is too.

Neither expected a homecoming quite like this.

When Cosmin Tessler’s radio show is canceled and Eric Campbell’s acting jobs dry up, they find themselves unexpectedly back in their old Toronto neighborhood…and back in each other’s lives years after they’d gone their separate ways. With a series of failed relationships and one ill-advised marriage behind them, both believe their chance for love has come and gone.

Luck, in the form of a massive ice storm, throws the former neighbors together again and they find themselves stranded, alone, for Christmas. Despite their difference in age, long-ago crushes and undeniable attraction prove too much to resist. But when the ice melts, only time will tell if their burgeoning romance will become just another missed chance—or a love story whose time has finally come.

REVIEW:

Cosmin Tessler is a psychologist, professor and radio host.  His weekly evening program, Sleeping Alone, has been on for a decade and at the opening of the story, he finds out that his  program is being canceled during the radio station’s Holiday party.  And this is after the final show for the year has aired. He’s, needless to say, quite upset.  The bartender at the party looks familiar to him, but definitely out of place.  But when he goes to get a bracing drink after the shocking news, he discovers that indeed he does know the bartender, Eric.  It turns out Eric grew up across the street from Cosmin’s family and although he is 10 years younger than Cosmin, Eric definitely remembers him.  Unfortunately Cosmin is in his own head and it’s not a happy place at that point since he’d just lost his father the month before and now his radio program, so he’s not exactly friendly to Eric.

Eric has been an actor, but his work has pretty much dried up and so he’s making ends meet with the bartending gig while sharing a flat with a former school friend in Waterloo.  Said friend bails on him as a ride home after his bartending gig and he finds himself without transportation home.  His fallback safety net is his ex-wife, Trina.  Luckily Trina and her new husband, Michael, are in town and let him crash with them for the night.  Eric is dealing with a lot and he seems to be self-sabotaging as well when it comes to work.  But he’s grateful to Trina and Michael for their help.

A bit a loose ends and realizing he’s going to miss the deadline for an audiobook he’s supposed to submit.  Sighing, he ends up in a Starbucks and as luck would have it, runs into a former high school friend.  Said friend is not recognized at first, but he has transitioned.  Eric confirms that he’s not so surprised and that he himself is bisexual.  They chat and Dillon offers to help Eric with his audition issues and that ends up working out pretty well.  In the meantime, he’s gotten a message from his parents about Christmas, so instead of returning to Waterloo, he goes to Whitby to his parents home to wait for them.  It’s during this visit, that he meets up with Cosmin again.

Cosmin has convinced his boss to let him do one last show.  It’s going to be the culmination of the bucket list show he’s wanted to do – six hours of air time about his sister and loss.  But he needs things from his father’s house and he hasn’t been able to locate them anywhere else.  So while he’s there searching, an ice storm begins.  Eric, unaware that Cosmin’s father has passed away, comes over the check on the older neighbor and discovers Cosmin.  And from there, a series of events take place that lead to some deep discussions, many revelations – from both men – and the beginnings of something that neither may really be ready for.

The stories that Cosmin and Eric share are deeply personal.  They discuss their past relationships and their family dynamics.  Cosmin discovers so many things that he did not know – about himself and his parents and in particular his father.  His family tragedy caused a breakdown that never healed and in the aftermath of his father’s death, he learns so many things that he’s devastated to find that so many of his assumptions had been wrong.  Eric, who had a crush on Cosmin from his teenage years, really wants to help and he confesses pretty early on his attraction to Cosmin. Eric does his best to support Cosmin and help him work through his newfound information.  Eric also get some surprising information during this incredibly intense and intimate time.  But is there enough there for them to build something beyond this holiday repreive?

This book definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste.  It’s far from a lighthearted holiday romance and therefore, requires more investment from the reader.  I was, however, invested early on this story and enjoyed the unfurling of this unexpected romance/connection between Cosmin and Eric.  There are so many wonderful moments in this story. I’m also giving extra points for the discussions around My Beautiful Laundrette.  Maybe I felt this story so personally because I’ve had the distinct honor of cleaning out the house of a dear relative and I felt like I discovered a whole new person from the one I had know for the 43 years that our lives overlapped.  One of the most beautiful/tragic aspects of the story is how much Cosmin and his father really didn’t know about each other.  They failed to connect in life and when Cosmin discovers this whole other life and whole other father from the one he knew, he feels it deeply – the missed opportunity and the sad and isolating way things panned out after their family broke.  The tragedy of loss compounded by the tragedy of the breakdown of communication was really heartbreaking.  On the other hand, Eric is able to see things a bit more clearly from the outside and when things finally start to look up for him, he comes to the realization that maybe he might have something to offer Cosmin after all.  I found this story to be incredibly touching and moving.  And year, there are a lot of tragic circumstances that Cosmin in particular has to overcome, it’s realistically portrayed and I think gives the book all that much more credibility that everything is not neat and tidy and clean.  Real life rarely works that way 🙂   Highly recommended.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Carina

Amazon