TITLE: A Little Village Blend
AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine
54 pages, Bold Stroke Books, ISBN 9781636790978 (e-book)
DESCRIPTION: (from the Goodreads page): According to Ivan’s sister Anya, Ivan’s tea leaves promise his perfect match is out there somewhere, just waiting to be swept off their feet. Ivan knows Anya’s always right—an annoying trait for a sister if ever there was one.
Ivan’s own knack with tea might not deal with the future, but it’s pretty good at helping with the here and now. When Walt, a tall, dark, and grumpy soldier shows up at his store, NiceTeas, in obvious need of a hand—and a dog-sitter—Ivan rises to the challenge and offers blends to make Walt’s life a little easier. There’s just no way he can help falling for the guy. But Anya says Walt’s not the one for Ivan, and the tea leaves don’t lie.
Is it worth steeping a here-and-now while waiting for the one-and-only? Ivan’s not sure, but everything tells him it’s all just a matter of finding the right blend.
MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5
MY THOUGHTS: In A Little Village Blend, ‘Nathan Burgoine delivers another sweet gay romance set in the Little Village, an area of primarily queer-owned businesses and queer-occupied apartments. This time, the focus is on Ivan, the co-owner (with his sister Anya) of NiceTeas. Like a lot of Burgoine’s characters who occupy the Village, Ivan has a touch of magical ability: he’s able to imbue the teas he hand-crafts and brews with a little extra magic to help the drinker with what they most need: a boost of confidence, an extra layer of calm, and so on. Anya has a related ability: she can read the grounds/leaves left behind and get a sense of a person’s future. And as the synopsis says, when harried and moody Walt enters NiceTeas, Ivan’s heart says one thing and Walt’s tea leaves as read by Anya say something different. The novella builds off that conflict smoothly and steadily without unnecessary detours or extra complications. It’s a tightly told story with a happily-ever-after (or at least a happily-for-now).
Even at a scant 54 pages, there’s a ton of character development for all three leads. We get details of Ivan and Anya’s childhood and why Anya is so concerned about Ivan finding a man who will love and protect him. We get a good sense of Walt’s current job and the not-work-related reasons he’s out-of-sorts on his first and later visits to NiceTeas. We get a look at Anya’s acting career and her thing about cats. And we get a sense of NiceTeas regular clientele and neighboring businesses as background characters, something a lot of books don’t seem to bother with. Some of these folks are characters we’ve met in other Burgoine stories, and some are brand new. This being the Village, there’s a strong possibility every new character who gets a name and even a bit of dialogue could turn up as the main character of a later story or novella.
And then there’s Sensei, the husky who brings Ivan and Walt together as more than tea-purveyor and customer. This dog absolutely steals the show in every scene he is in and is the heart of the novella. Often, pets can be nothing more than plot devices or as an easy signifier of a character’s personality (“Oh, this guy is a dog lover”). Not so Sensei. Burgoine and his husband have a husky, so it’s no surprise he gets the dog’s personality so totally correct.
It bears noting once again: you do not have to have read any of Burgoine’s other Little Village novellas to follow the plot of this one. The author goes out of his way to make sure these stories stand alone and can be read in any order. So if gay romance with subtle magic and an adorable husky sounds like your thing, pick up A Little Village Blend.