Genre: Contemporary
LGBTQ+ Category: MMF
Reviewer: Ulysses, Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
Bound by a devastating secret, childhood friends David, Josh, and Kate take on home renovation as a means of healing from a dark, shared past.
Their only promise? Friendship first—no hookups.
Only several months after moving into their Baltimore fixer, the aptly nicknamed Canton Catastrophe, walls are crumbling, sparks are flying, and promises are getting ignored.
Josh, a paramedic, is plagued with panic attacks, haunted by the past, and sharing a room with David, who he is definitely not attracted to. And then there’s Kate. She’s having a job crisis, popping pills, and pretending she doesn’t notice how distant the boys have grown. And David? The eternally calm, blue-eyed beauty’s health is deteriorating and he’s mysteriously blacking out.
But when they learn someone may have discovered their darkest secret and is now stalking them–and blackmailing Josh’s father, a conservative media personality with secrets of his own, renovation and relationship woes take a back seat. Suddenly, their past is unraveling, and the shocking truths unearthed will have them questioning everything from family ties and friendships to love, loss, and the lengths they’re willing to go for each other.
The Review
Well, this isn’t a typical PRG sort of book. It is Stephania Thompson’s debut novel, the first of a series set in Charm City—which is what locals call Baltimore.
The book revolves around three twenty-four-year-olds, Kate, Josh, and David, who have known each other since they were children. Kate and Josh are supposedly twins, and David has the same birthday. They have bought a little tumble-down row house in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood. Woven together by their deep friendship and shared past, they all have jobs and are working to build a future.
That’s the story, and at first, they stick to it.
Thompson carefully builds our understanding of these three beautiful, wounded young people. The chapters alternate with their individual points of view, each offering distinct perspective on the increasingly complicated situation in which the young friends find themselves; but cumulatively building a layered vision of who they are, and how much they really feel for each other.
The immediate complication is that, while they acknowledge—and have since childhood—their love each other, Kate is in love with David, while David is in love with Josh. They have all been intimate with each other, but only in pairs, and discreetly. David and Josh know of their feelings for each other, but are keeping it a secret from Kate and from everyone else. Their main impetus is to live a normal life and not hurt each other.
The reason for this becomes increasingly apparent as the story unrolls, and Josh and Kate’s father begins to intrude on their lives. A dark back story emerges, explaining both why they are in Baltimore, and why they—despite appearances—are so badly damaged.
It’s a twisted, complex story, again evoking the title of the book. The three friends’ lives form a tapestry, torn and stained, but also strong and resilient.
From my perspective as an older gay man with two grown children the same ages as the young people in the book, Thompson’s story is disturbing in several ways. The unrequited triangle relationship here provides a perfect illustration of why, historically, bisexual men get a bad rap in the gay world. For all their love for each other, these three people are untrustworthy and untruthful. What they do to protect each other ultimately has the opposite effect.
Don’t get me wrong, I fell in love with a bisexual man 47 years ago, and we raised our kids from infancy together. The mess that Kate, Josh, and David are living in provides an unsettling and unhappy contrast with my own experience as a gay man who fought to have a normal life. I found myself alternating between parental concern and anger at their shame and prevarication.
One note I can’t avoid. Thompson, like many young writers today, seems to misunderstand the basic grammatical use of the prepositions I and me. She gets it wrong every single time throughout the text. This really ought to be corrected, as it is jarring—at least for a reader of my age.
Thompson does end the book on a slightly upbeat, hopeful cliffhanger, and I give her credit for bringing honesty and unselfish love into the emotionally charged story. I felt better at the end—but I didn’t feel exactly good.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
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