Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: Motel. Pool
AUTHOR: Kim Fielding
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 208 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 11, 2014
BLURB:
In the mid-1950s, Jack Dayton flees his working-class prospects in Omaha and heads to Hollywood, convinced he’ll be the next James Dean. But sleazy casting couches don’t earn him stardom, and despair leads to a series of poor decisions that ultimately find him at a cheap motel off Route 66, lifeless at the bottom of the pool.
Sixty years later, Tag Manning, feeling hopeless and empty, flees his most recent relationship mistake and takes to the open road. On a roundabout route to Las Vegas, he pulls over to rest at an isolated spot on Route 66. There’s no longer a motel or pool, but when Tag resumes his journey to Vegas, he finds he’s transporting a hitchhiking ghost. Jack and Tag come to find much-needed friends in each other, but one man is a phantom and the other is strangely cursed. Time is running out for each of them, and they must face the fact that a future together may not only be a gamble… it may not be in the cards.
VALERIE’S REVIEW:
Motel. Pool. is a fantastic, romantic ghost story spanning six decades. It pairs a young man who died tragically in the 1950s with a living man who has run out of hope and is nearly dead inside. It’s the dead man who saves the living one in this interesting book.
Jack Dayton wants to be somebody special, to matter. Specifically, he wants to be a movie star. He has big dreams of fame and fortune: a big acting career, a big house, big car, big pool. But his dreams shatter when he’s told he’ll never be more than a two-bit actor, so he packs up and heads home to Omaha in misery. He never makes it home, though. His car breaks down in Arizona and he holes up at a cheap motel where he drowns in the pool.
Sixty years later, Tag Manning is on a solo road trip, driving somewhat aimlessly toward the Grand Canyon. Too tired to keep driving one night, he pulls off old Route 66 into the parking lot of the same, now non-existent motel. When a ghost appears in his car – Jack, still as a man of about twenty-two – they continue on the road trip together. Tag doesn’t expect to eventually fall in love or have the ghost save his life.
Tag has always been on his own, fending for himself since a young age. His mother had schizophrenia, his father was an alcoholic, and neither was capable of caring for a child. At sixteen, he was kicked out for being gay and now both parents are dead. Tag was left emotionally scarred by his upbringing and can’t connect with people; he’s no good with friends or boyfriends and is always afraid of messing everything up, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He’s blown every opportunity and lost any good fortune he’s had. Now he’s terribly alone and deeply depressed after a recent breakup, and afraid to be with anyone for fear he’ll lose them, too. He quit his job, packed up all his stuff, and hit the road.
“Tag had hoped that this road trip would spark some feeling in him, that the Grand Canyon would startle him out of his stupor. But instead the numbness only spread, as if someone had given his soul a shot of novocaine.”
Tag hits rock bottom in Las Vegas. Ironically, he’s traveling with a ghost yet he’s the one that feels dead inside – no emotions, no libido, no desires. Jack, on the other hand, is feeling alive for the first time in sixty years, relishing the experiences. It’s interesting that while he was once obsessed with possessions, he now has nothing, nor any interest in them. In addition to reciprocating Tag’s love, over the course of their time together, Jack gives Tag the gift of knowing what happiness feels like and what real love is. He teaches Tag to experience joy, peace, and beauty; to feel emotions; and to feel alive for the first time in … forever, maybe.
There are two standout side characters: Las Vegas hotel employee, Buddy, who they befriend, and Officer Broderick, the policeman who rescued Jack when his car broke down in Arizona.
I’ve been on a roll with ghost stories lately and Motel. Pool. ranks among the best. As I near the endings of these stories, I always wonder what clever way the author is going to write an HEA for a human and a spirit, because one can only imagine heartbreak in store for the characters. This book was filled with despair, and yes, I cried, but Kim Fielding put a unique twist into her story in this regard that I found very satisfying. I really didn’t know until the end if the book would have a happy or bittersweet ending. It’s a tribute to Kim Fielding that either could work have worked. For those of you who require a happily ever after (me!), you’ll be pleased with the unexpected happening at the very conclusion. If you enjoy a bit of the paranormal, give this book a shot.
RATING: 
RETRO REVIEW by Carissa May 19, 2014
For a few hours, he’d felt almost alive again. He could nearly feel his heart beating. And he had a friend. If Jack spent eternity alone in the desert, he’d have this time to treasure. He’d have a few precious memories to take out and admire over and over, like a dragon gloating over his gold.
But Tag was obviously sad. He was probably very tired…But it was more than that. Tag had been sad since Jack had first seen him, as Tag parked his car by the deserted road and settled in to sleep. He’d been sad at the Grand Canyon, and he’d been so sad at Hoover Dam that Jack suspected he was going to jump. Tag smiled sometimes, and even laughed, but he never shook the mantle of sorrow that hung heavy on his shoulders, haunting him more thoroughly than a ghost ever could.
Jack Dayton wanted to be a star…what he ended up being was a two-bit actor that was never going to make it, no matter how many directors he put up with–or put out for. With his dreams in tatters he figures he might as well go home–to a life of meatpacking plants, back-alley trysts, and loneliness. He never figured that life would end up wasted on the bottom of a cheap motel pool.
Tag Manning has all the luck in the world–except for all its ups, the lows are three times as hard. Mostly because no matter how hard he tries, he always fucks it up. Like when his boyfriend got down on his knee and proposed…and Tag took a runner right out of the restaurant and their life together. Now months have gone by and Tag is on the road trying to find…something. A life. A feeling. Hell, maybe even his soul. He never figured he would find everything at a derelict pit stop just off of Route 66.
Jack wanted to be a star, Tag just wanted to feel human, but neither man seems able to find their hearts desire. Until they meet. But with sixty years, Jack’s death, and Tag’s inability to connect between them, what hope have they of a happy ending?
First off, I absolutely love this book cover. It is so perfect for this book, and it is one of the reasons that I picked this story up for review (other than, you know, it being written by the lovely Kim Fielding). So total props there.
Now the story…
I really do wish someone would remind me why I don’t normally go for the ghostly-romance stories before I start reading them and get hooked and then end up getting snot and tears all over my favorite pillow. That pillow has been good to me; it doesn’t deserve me blubbering all over it. But alas, I did not remember, and no one chose to warn me…so, to my pillow I must say: I am sorry. I didn’t mean to cry all over you like a teenage girl at the end of The Notebook (I will totally and forever deny any post-teenage crying over that movie. You can’t prove anything!).
It was all that damn list’s fault. That is all I am going to say on that matter.
Other than the totally gross blubbering (by me) at the end, I really liked this book.
Tag, for a long time, felt extremely closed off, but that was kinda the whole point. I wanted to shake him out of it, to tell him to just buck the fuck up, but I guess life–and depression–just don’t work like that. But even with all that I connected with the guy. Sure his reckless gambling pissed my broke-ass off. I mean, I spend days trying to justify the buying of a new book, while he just throws that cash around like it is nothing. Still…he knows that it isn’t nothing–he grew up broke most of the time, so he knows just what it is like to want that security, that safety net, he just has come to a place in his life where he can’t care. He may want to, but he just can’t. And it takes meeting a dead guy for him to figure out why.
And for a dead guy, Jack seems to have life figured out. Granted, sixty years of down time, with not much else to do but think, can help a lot in figuring out some of that shit. And for all that his life went a bit cockeyed at the end there, he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. He may have went after his dreams with a little less thought than probably was wise, but at the end of the day he still went after it. He tried. Jack dreamed big, but at his core he also had just simple desires: to have a home, to have a man to grow old with, to be someone that other people remembered. Wanting to matter is something I think most of us can identify with.
Tag gives Jack that, as much as Jack gives Tag something that has nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with love. Even if that love comes with one hell of a heartbreak. Cause humans and ghosts, no matter how substantial they are, is always going to end in tears. I mean, how could it not? They get days, weeks, but they both know it can’t go anywhere. Maybe that is what gave them courage to actually fall. If you are going to end up tumbling off the cliff anyways, might as well hold hands as you go down.
And sometimes the landing is softer than you thought it’d be. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the universe, or god, or fate takes pity and puts you back together after you’ve hit rock bottom. Sometimes “gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day” (yeah, yeah, I just totally quoted Supernatural, so what?).
I really enjoyed this book. Yeah it made me cry, but most of the time that is a good thing. I loved the characters, and the writing, and Vegas was fun to explore with Tag and Jack (even if I did expect Mitch, Sam, and Randy from Heidi Cullinan’s Special Delivery Series to pop up at some point). I’ve always enjoyed Fielding’s stories, but this has to be one of my favorites from her. Even if it tried to break my heart.
RETRO RATING:
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