Book Review: VILLAGE FOOL

TITLE: Village Fool

AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine

74 pages, Bold Stroke Books, ISBN 9781635559828 (e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from Publisher website): Owen is only confident in two places: at work, supporting clients through IT woes, and when he’s sitting around a gaming table in the role of a smooth and charming bard. He’s never acted on the crush he’s had on his physiotherapist—and total cubcake—Toma. Even though Owen’s no longer Toma’s patient, and his crush hasn’t dialed down in the slightest, Owen can’t figure out how to make a move.

When a friend decides to play a prank involving Owen’s contact list, Owen spends the morning of April Fools’ day inadvertently texting smooth and charming thoughts about Toma... to Toma himself.

By the time Owen discovers the prank, things are completely out of control. Discussions of thighs and awards for the World’s Best Chest have been handed out—not to mention they’ve set an accidental coffee date—and there’s no taking that sort of thing back. When this joke finally gets told, Owen’s convinced he’ll be the punchline, but with a little luck and some nudging from his friends, the last laugh might be the best of his life.

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: If you’ve read either of ‘Nathan Burgoine’s other “Little Village” romance novellas (Handmade Holidays and Faux Ho Ho) you will not be surprised at how endearing Village Fool is nor how relatable the main characters are. If this is your first “Little Village” romance, you’re in for a treat. Yes, this is the third book in a series if we look at them in release order, but each “Little Village” novella stands alone so you can jump right into this one without having read the previous two (and maybe it will inspire you to read the others!).

Like its predecessors, Village Fool is a holiday romance, but instead of the usual Christmas or New Year’s setting we get April Fool’s Day. Now, I don’t know about you, but April Fool’s Day is not one of my favorite holidays, having involved more bullying than humor in my childhood. But I don’t dislike the holiday enough to write off a romance with April Fools pranks at the core unread, especially when that book is written by one of my favorite authors (overall, and specifically of gay romance). Unlike its predecessors, where the holiday itself is not just the set-up but a key component of the plot, Village Fool really could have taken place at any time of year. Friends play pranks on friends all the time. But setting it on the holiday keeps the “Little Village” holiday theme going, and it works just fine.

I identified heavily with Owen, the novella’s POV character. Like him, I am far smoother and more personable when I’m on the job (corporate trainer in my case, IT support for Owen) or when I’m among very, very close friends (the Bittersweets Club and D&D circle for Owen) than when I have to make conversation with a guy I find interesting/attractive (my current ongoing crush is also a total “cubcake” like Toma, but he works in the food industry not as a physiotherapist). Like Owen, my friends tease me about my crush and I get a little angsty about why I can’t seem to formulate complete sentences around him. Also like Owen, I would be devastatingly embarrassed if my friends pulled a stunt like Felix does at the start of Village Fool to force the “just ask him out already” issue. (Unlike Owen, I still have no idea if my crush might be even remotely into guys, but that’s a topic for my therapist and not a book review…) The TL;DR of this paragraph is: Owen is recognizable, relatable, and very easy to like.

And even though we don’t get any scenes directly from Toma’s POV to see inside his head, we can tell that he’s also relatable and likeable. His every interaction with Owen is supportive, friendly, eventually flirty. He’s not happy that the date he thought he was finally going on was a misunderstanding and he’s not willing to let Felix completely or easily off the hook. But Toma also understands why Owen is so much more upset about the situation than he is and he’s willing to back off and give Owen space if that’s what Owen wants.

In the hands of other authors, this misunderstanding would garner a novel’s worth of anger and angst before the situation gets resolved, with both characters second-guessing their own feelings as well as the other character’s motivations and responses. Burgoine threads that needle expertly: Owen’s reactions, borne out of humiliation, are a bit more histrionic (without being soap-opera scenery-chewing) while Toma’s are more grounded (without being dismissive of Owen’s feelings), and both men’s reactions are totally in character.

The alternating chapters of present-day and flashbacks format works as well in Village Fool as it did in Faux Ho Ho, adding nice levels of tension and release. Again, it’s a style that not every author is fully effective with, but Burgoine is a master.

There’s also just the right amount of interference from Owen’s circle of friends in both the present and the past to help nudge things towards a Happily Ever After ending (although in Felix’s case the “nudging” is what creates the drama in the first place). The alternating flashback chapters fill us in not just on how Owen came to know Toma, but also how he met Silas, Ru, and Felix and started to feel like maybe the Village was someplace he belongs. The prank and its aftermath don’t occur in a bubble; we get glimpses of a well-developed group of friends without those glimpses being winky-nudgy-youshouldhavereadtheotherbooks distractions. I was happy to see Silas and Dino (from Faux Ho Ho) and Ru and Fiona (from Handmade Holidays) in varying-sized supporting roles along with mentions of other residents and businesses in the Little Village district.

I don’t think I will ever get tired of stories set amongst the group of friends we’ve met in these three novellas, and I hope the “Little Village” series goes on for a long time regardless of whether the “holiday” theme continues. If you like stories that include awkward meet-cutes, friends who are family, and happily-ever-after gay romance, pick up Village Fool and the other Little Village novellas.

Review of Mary Anne Mohanraj's PERENNIAL

TITLE: Perennial: A Garden Romance

AUTHOR: Mary Anne Mohanraj

87 pages, Lethe Press (Tincture imprint), paperback and e-book formats, ISBN 978-1590216408

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Perennial tells the story of Kate Smith, an aspiring artist facing a difficult cancer diagnosis, and Devan McLeod, a flower shop owner. It draws on the experiences of the author, Mary Anne Mohanraj, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and treated (successfully) with chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. This little book intercuts poems she wrote over the course of that year with a garden romance. Mohanraj is an enthusiastic Chicagoland amateur gardener, and during treatment, she took great solace in her garden. She hopes this book bring solace and joy to its readers.

MY RATING: Five out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way: this was one of several Advanced Reading Copies / Free Copies sent to me by Lethe Press with the understanding that I’d provide an honest review via various platforms online.

My honest review is: I loved this short, emotional, oh-so-real book.

It’s clear that Mary Anne Mohanraj poured her soul into this one, plugged in so many of the details of her own real-life experiences and coping mechanisms. She brought me to tears several times in these less-than-100 pages, and I’ve re-read it twice this month (although, for organization’s sake, I’m only counting it once in my Reading Challenge and Goodreads counts). The only other novellas featuring a main character fighting cancer that have affected me this way are Jay Lake’s “The Specific Gravity of Grief” and ‘Nathan Burgoine’s “In Memoriam,” both of which I highly recommend.

I should also say I’m not a regular reader of present-day straight romance (what romance I do read tends to be m/m and either historical or supernatural or both), nor am I a frequent reader of poetry (what poetry I do read tends to be written by friends, or a recent return to the epics of the classical age). So this book really falls pretty much completely outside of my wheelhouse in terms of reviewing: I don’t know how to “grade” the poetry, I don’t know how the development of the Kate-Declan romance compares to other books of similar length in this genre. And because I’m not well-versed in those forms/genres, I’m not going to try to review the book from those angles. I will say I found the poetry easy to read and full of emotion and lyricism and raw honesty, but I’ll leave analysis of structure and style to those more scholarly.

I love the novella’s alternating points of view, showing us the blush of first interest on Declan’s part and then Kate’s, and the growing concern for each other’s health and confusion over what they’re feeling in the midst of such life-changing physical and mental trauma. Not being limited to either’s POV for the whole book expands the story’s range of emotion for me. I recognized parts of myself and my own cancer journey in Kate: in her not wanting help, not wanting life to change too drastically, and her eventually realization that it has – cancer treatment leaves no-one unscathed.

 I also love that Declan has his own subplot going on, and I recognized parts of him in myself as well: the anniversaries of certain events throw me into a dark funk as deep as the one Declan finds himself in in the second half of the book, although I’ve never experienced what Declan has. I think the subplot is also important to show that Declan is not simply Kate’s knight in shining armor. These two rescue each other, and that really made the story as a whole work for me. (As a side note: I’d fall for Declan if I met him in real life; Scots blood calls to Scots blood, and all that, but that’s neither here nor there.)

If it’s so outside my regular reading zone, why did I pick Perennial up first from the small pile of books Lethe Press sent me? Plain and simple: I trust Mary Anne Mohanraj as a writer. I’ve enjoyed every short story I’ve read by her in recent years, and her name on the cover told me I would be in good hands regardless the genre. Awareness of her as a fellow cancer survivor (colon cancer in 2005 for me, breast cancer in 2016 for Mohanraj) also made me want to read the story sooner rather than later. I wanted it to feel as recent and raw as it could. Not that I think the book will lose its effect over me with time – I still cry every time I pick up the Jay Lake or ‘Nathan Burgoine novellas mentioned above – but with each reread comes a different perspective. I look forward to exploring those new perspectives, and letting more tears flow, on subsequent re-reads of Perennial as well.

LINDA POITEVIN's NEW ROMANCE - Interview

It’s always fun to welcome certain folks back to Ramble On with me about new projects. Linda Poitevin is one of those folks. Linda is the creator of THE GRIGORI LEGACY series of urban fantasy (SINS OF THE ANGELS and SINS OF THE SON available now), and she recently debuted a new romance novel. You can see my previous interviews with Linda HERE and ALSO HERE, and sharp-eyed readers of my story “Chasing Satellites,” now available in the anthology BEYOND THE SUN, may notice a nod to Linda therein as well.

ANTHONY: Welcome back, Linda!

LINDA: First of all, Anthony, thank you SO much for inviting me onto your blog again—I’m truly honored to be here!

ANTHONY: You released GWYNNETH EVER AFTER recently. Tell us a bit about the story.

LINDA:  I’m not very good at seeing the underlying themes in stories (I detested that part of high school English, lol), but a reviewer identified Gwynneth Ever After as a “Cinderella tale” and darned if she isn’t right! In my story’s case, “Cinderella” is an ordinary single mom/architect raising three children and juggling all the ordinary stresses in life, and her Prince Charming is a famous Hollywood actor. But all isn’t love and sweetness, because they have a lot to try to overcome. Gwyn’s and her children’s hearts have been badly damaged and she is fiercely protective of them all—and Gareth is harboring a secret that could drive her away forever.

ANTHONY: GWYNNETH is not at all connected to your “Grigori Legacy” series, correct?  Where did the inspiration for this story come from?

LINDA: No, Gwynneth isn’t connected with the Grigori Legacy at all. It was actually written (and published) before Sins of the Angels was released. At the time, I was focusing on writing romance, had a huge crush on an actor who shall remain unnamed, and regularly walked past a house in my town that became my inspiration for Gwyn’s home — and her occupation.

And wanna know something weird? About three years after I wrote the book, I found out that home’s owner—who had renovated the house just as Gwyn did—was also an architect.

ANTHONY: That is a little eerie! Did you find that your writing or editing process changed because you were writing in a different genre?

LINDA: My writing and editing process is…well, I’d have to call it a work in progress, lol. Gwynneth Ever After came earlier in my career, so my process has actually evolved a great deal since I wrote it. For instance, I used to be a pure “pantser,” not plotting out anything in advance. That worked well enough with Gwynneth, but needed to change with the complexity of the Grigori Legacy series because there were just too many threads to keep track of entirely in my head. Now I straddle the fence between pantser and plotter, having just enough of an idea of what’s coming up to be sure I don’t miss something or—even worse—write myself into a corner when it comes to a future plot point.

ANTHONY: That last comment is a logical segue into this question, if you can answer it without spoiling the outcome: is GWYNNETH a stand-alone novel or the start of a new series?

LINDA: Gwynneth was written as a stand-alone, but I haven’t ruled out a sequel at some point down the road. Mostly because there’s a certain cousin in the book who really, really needs to meet his match, in my opinion. J Also, several readers have suggested a novella that perhaps features Gwyn & Gareth’s wedding…I’ve never tackled a novella, but it might be fun!

ANTHONY: What prompted the decision to self-publish this book after going the traditional publisher route for the first two “Grigori” books?

LINDA: My publisher was actually interested in taking on Gwynneth as well, but once I made the decision to release, I wanted to do so faster than they could manage. With almost a year and a half between the releases of books 2 and 3 in the Grigori Legacy series, Sins of the Son and Sins of the Lost, I felt I owed it to readers to fill the gap with something and my editor and agent were very supportive of the idea.

ANTHONY: That’s fantastic that they were supportive. What were the challenges of self-publishing? And why only in e-book form?

LINDA: The main challenges of self-publishing were the enormous learning curve and the sheer amount of information I had to sift through to find the answers I was looking for. It really is a “buyer beware” world out there when it comes to the plethora of services offered to authors who are self-publishing and you need to be very well informed in order to make sound decisions.

As to why only e-book, I honestly just haven’t had a chance to look at the possibility of print at this point. Again, I haven’t ruled it out.

ANTHONY: What would your two lead females, Alexandra Jarvis and Gwynneth, think of each other?

LINDA: That is such an interesting question. Both women are very strong in their own right—they’ve had to be, given the circumstances of their lives. I think they would recognize and respect that strength in one another if they were to meet, but I also think Gwynneth would want to keep her family as far away from Alex as possible if she knew even a fraction of what was going on in Alex’s life these days. Alex would be inclined to agree with her—the war between Heaven and Hell has no place in the lives of three small children and their mother.

ANTHONY: And speaking of Alex, when is the next Grigori Legacy book coming out, and what can you tell us about the plot?

Sins of the Lost will be out on October 15th—darker and grittier than either of its predecessors. Alex’s new relationship with Seth is struggling, Lucifer’s Nephilim army is on the brink of its birth, and humanity is beginning to disintegrate in the face of its own fear. Apart from that, all I can tell you is that bad things happen, Anthony…very bad things. (I’m beginning to become a little concerned about this sadistic streak I’ve uncovered in myself, lol!) Before readers become too upset with me, however, I’d just like to point out that the Grigori Legacy is not a trilogy and there will be a fourth book!!!

You can follow linda on Twitter @lindapoitevin, and “like” her page on Facebook, or go direct to her website for updates on all of her projects.  GWYNNETH EVER AFTER is available in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.