Guest Review by Dan
TITLE: Home Run Holiday: An MM Holiday Romance
AUTHOR: Andy Gallo
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: approx 4500kb
RELEASE DATE: December 5, 2024
BLURB:
For Wyatt Langston, loving Everton and secretly pining for Linus, his best friend’s brother, have been constants in his life. But after four years of teaching at his hometown elementary school, watching everyone else find their happily-ever-after, Wyatt faces the heart-wrenching reality: he’ll have to leave the small town he cherishes if he wants to find love—and finally get over Linus Hartley.
Baseball superstar Linus Hartley only planned to spend Christmas with his family and rehab his career-threatening injury. He never expected his brother’s best friend to completely derail his carefully constructed life. The once-awkward teenager has become a confident, irresistible man who makes Linus question a lifetime of hiding his bisexuality. Coming out, however, could destroy the baseball career he spent his whole life building.
When their stolen moments together ignite into an undeniable passion, both men risk everything for a chance at love. A close call with the media threatens to expose their relationship and they’re forced to confront impossible choices. Linus must decide if love is worth sacrificing his career, while Wyatt needs to find the strength to put Linus ahead of his feelings and walk away from the man he’s always loved. With their hearts and futures on the line, can they find the courage to choose each other, or will fear force them apart?
Home Run Holiday is a 60K word holiday romance novel, with small town Christmas charm, big city dreams, a pesky mistletoe hat and a guaranteed happy ending.
REVIEW:
It has been a minute since I reviewed a book for Love Bytes. So, I apologize if I’m a little bit rusty. Not that I read any less these days, but I’m usually starting another book as soon as I hit the last page of the book I’m currently reading!
Today, I paused a minute after finishing this newest Andy Gallo book long enough to enter my email on his newsletter site and download the short story follow up to this current story. But more about that later.
To say I loved this current book would be an understatement. I wasn’t sure I’d rave about it until part way into the book when the story just kept building. It has all the pieces of a type of story that I really like to read. The story revolves around a small-town gay schoolteacher, his best friend, and the best friend’s older brother who has been kind of out of the picture since he became a major league baseball player. The older brother has come back to the small town due to an injury to recover. The schoolteacher is despondent because he is going to have to quit the job he loves teaching children at the same elementary school that he, his friend, and the brother all attended back in the day. All because the only other four gay men in town are retired aged couples. And dating is impossible in the tiny Vermont town. Now living in a tiny Vermont town is something I’m very familiar with. Growing up, the dating pool was so bad that I fled to the military to find other gay men. Now nearing retirement, we live in a tiny Vermont village, and most of friends are indeed older retirement aged couples, so I felt Wyatt’s plight immediately.
As the story opens, Wyatt has come to the realization that he will have to give up the job he absolutely loves and follow his best friend Kieran to Massachusetts to teach in a Boston area school near where Kieran’s current job is. Kieran and his off-camera girlfriend (?) live in Massachusetts, if he is ever going to find that elusive ‘one’ that he can settle down and have his dream relationship, and future children with. There is only one problem, Kieran hates his job, so Wyatt is hesitant to move there, not knowing anyone, and not having his best friend have time for him.
The whole game changes though when the handsome older brother / jock / major league baseball star comes home to recover from an injury over the Christmas holiday. Wyatt has secretly had a crush on Linus since he was thirteen years old. But Linus is straight, right?
Linus has never acknowledged to his friends or family, and most certainly not to his fellow players, coach and agent, that he is bisexual. It has never been an issue and won’t be going forward, he believes. That all changes when he runs into Wyatt, who he hasn’t seen or thought about for ten years or more and where the hottie came from. Wyatt was always kind of a clumsy nerd, but not any longer.
As the story progresses, the two men spend more and more time with each other and sparks start to fly. Sparks lead to fire, and both men are drawn into the beginnings of a relationship. When they go to Burlington, Vermont largest city, for a weekend at a Bed & Breakfast at Kieran’s urging, with Kieran thinking he has Linus set up to convince Wyatt to move to Massachusetts to be close to Kieran, things rapidly change. Feelings come out.
The two men are having a great weekend, exploring their growing relationship. But Wyatt is a Major League Baseball Player (and yes… I capitalized it for emphasis.) When they go out to eat at a cute little café, a news crew shows up to cover the big story of the baseball player home in Vermont to recover, Linus panics and sends Wyatt away. Wyatt has always known that Linus isn’t out and can’t be without major repercussions. They had already had a talk, and Linus knows that Wyatt refuses to be a dirty little secret, hidden away from the rest of world. But he sends Wyatt away anyway. When he finishes with his interview, which it turns out had nothing to do with Linus being in the café with Wyatt, Linus returns to the B&B to find Wyatt has fled. And even worse, he gets an email from Wyatt severing their budding relationship. Can they move past it? Will Wyatt forgive him? Can Linus risk his multi-million dollar a year career for their future?
The story keeps building, and I loved it. I’m not going to give any further clues but urge you to pick up the book and read it yourself. Andy Gallo promises a happy ending, and we do get it eventually. And did I mention the follow up short story that you get if you sign up for the author’s newsletter? 5 years in the future from the end of the story… and a cute wrap-up. No spoilers on that one either.
I highly recommend this one. If you aren’t familiar with Andy Gallo, you must have been living under a rock somewhere. I’ve loved everything he’s written, under both of his writing names. And I’m sure you will as well.
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