Genre: Urban Fantasy, Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses, Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
We’re not alone. There are an infinite number of universes and no two are the same.
Nathan Duffy knows how to keep things locked down so tight even he doesn’t know they’re there. Like his childhood trauma over the near-catastrophe he almost caused when his power manifested. His adolescent resentment over the near fatal injury he still hasn’t really accepted. His futile not-so-platonic love for his best friend Cam. And that one pivotal moment when the love and the power had merged to save Cam from the accident that left Nathan unable to walk. Nathan figures losing the use of his legs was a fair exchange for Cam’s life. He just can’t ever let Cam know why.
For Cam Almenara, life has been an ongoing cycle of questioning reality. What if his mother hadn’t died when he was ten? What if that drunk driver hadn’t almost killed him and Nathan? What if Nathan’s powers hadn’t protected Cam at the cost of Nathan’s ability to walk? What if Nathan had never convinced himself that Cam’s feelings for him are nothing more than attachment and survivor’s guilt? And what if Cam can never convince Nathan otherwise?
When Nathan is suddenly stricken by seizure like nightmares, his power slips its leash—again. Fearful his rogue abilities will hurt—or worse, kill—Cam, Nathan comes to the conclusion that it’s him or Cam. Nathan knows who he’ll choose. Trouble is, so does Cam. And he’s just as willing as Nathan is to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the best friend he loves… and prove they belong together.
A World Away is 130k friends to lovers, slow burn romance with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. This book includes parallel universes, a chance to see “what if,” extreme selflessness, and two very snarky main characters who can’t seem to see they belong together.
The Review
I remember reading a version of this book some years ago under the title “Relativity: Lateral Parallax.” This recent re-boot of that book has a more romantic cover and title, as well as a lushly romantic epilogue, clearly targeting readers’ expectations. I was glad to have the chance to reread this book and enjoy the authors’ ambitious mashup of sci-fi and paranormal romance.
Camilo Almenara is the son of possibly the most powerful non-elected man in America, Col. Caesar Almenara. His best friend since childhood is Nathan Duffy. As is necessary in books like this, Cam and Nathan, nicknamed Puff by his friends, because of a childhood misunderstanding of his surname, are semi-secretly in love with each other. That is the thread that runs all the way through this book.
The romantic inevitability of these two college students has been complicated by two twists of fate: the sudden death of Cam’s mother when he was a teenager, and a near-fatal accident with a drunk driver that left Nathan partially paralyzed and Cam unscathed.
A brilliant world-building twist from the authors tells us that this is a world in which magical power, known as talent, is innate in some significant minority of humans, and is inherited in a generation-skipping pattern. The unhappier aspect of this is that, above a certain magical talent level, young people are automatically drafted into the military to help fight a global war (East vs. West) that has gone on for decades.
All of this excellently written narrative takes a surreal turn when the book abruptly veers into classified military research and quantum theory far beyond my comprehension. Suddenly Cam and Nathan are no longer just star-crossed lovers, but unwitting players in a terrifying sci-fi drama with military implications that had my head spinning.
It’s very well written and utterly spell-binding. Plus, the young central characters are marvelous, and their romance is never forgotten; indeed it becomes one of the catalysts for the action.
It’s an ambitious concept that could have failed in less skilled hands. I’m already reading the second book in the series.
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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