Series Saturday: Nathan Burgoine's TRIAD

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics.

Triad Trilogy

Written by ‘Nathan Burgoine

Novels published by Bold Stroke Books

Novels:

·       Triad Blood (2015)

·       Triad Soul (2017)

·       Triad Magic (2019)

In the supernatural underworld of ‘Nathan Burgoine’s Ottawa, “three” is the magic number. It takes three wizards to start a coven, three vampires to start a coterie, three demons to start a pack. Loners are looked down upon at best and more often hounded to an early grave. Until Curtis (a wizard), Luc (a vampire), and Anders (a demon) form a Triad of their own. Their action is unprecedented, upsetting Ottawa’s supernatural powers-that-be. Their union makes them stronger but also makes them targets.

Luc, Anders, and Curtis debuted in a short story in an anthology and proved popular enough to get their own novel trilogy. You do not have to read any of the short stories to follow the flow or to understand the world-building or character backgrounds of the trilogy. The short stories enhance the novels, but the novels stand completely on their own.

The relationship between Curtis, Anders, and Luc starts out as an act of necessity. They renew the bond that makes them a triad every month because they need it to survive; separating would put them again at the mercy of the covens/coteries/packs. But the relationship grows as the trilogy progresses, becoming more emotionally intimate (physical intimacy … okay, sex … is what brought them together in the first place). What we see is a nuanced portrayal of consensual polyamory, each partner bringing strengths and vulnerabilities to the triad. Burgoine doesn’t shy away from the very realistic potential for jealousy and misunderstanding that any open relationship, polyamorous or not, faces but he also doesn’t make these tensions the sole focus of the books nor does he drag them out longer than necessary the way some polyamorous romance novels would just to maintain “tension.”

              The real focal point of the novels is the effect the Triad’s existence has on the political landscape of Ottawa’s supernatural community. The wizards have traditionally been in control, in a strained détente with the vampires, demons, and other supernatural entities (werewolves, spirit-talkers, and others). There is bitterness over the accords that formed this power structure and keep it in place. I loved how Burgoine teases out the strains and uneasiness throughout the books, eventually revealing how things got to where they are and just why the Triad’s existence is a threat to that structure. While each book does a wonderful job of standing complete on its own, there’s a definite through-line and build up of subplots that lead to a big finale at the end of the third book, a very satisfying conclusion. So if you’re looking for a complete-in-three urban fantasy that still leaves the door open for the main characters to have more adventures, this is the series for you.

I also love these books because I’ve come to love the three main characters. Burgoine takes what could be standard, flat tropes (young nerdy wizard; vampire with a mysterious past; horny lust-demon) and imbues them with depth and complexity. The transformation from three guys bound together by common need who also enjoy having sex with each other into a relationship of mutual respect is so well done. Anders and Luc warily put up with each other at the start; they have a history of competition that is hard to work past even while they acknowledge just how much they both care for Curtis. Curtis’ physical attraction to both men, despite how different they are, leads to strong feelings for both that the trio have a tough time reconciling. And their banter is snarky and often self-effacing, with quips perfectly timed – just my kind of humor.

There is also a diverse supporting cast of friends and grudging allies who also grow and change over the course of the trilogy. And something else I appreciate: Burgoine does not give his bad-guys redemption arcs or tragic back-stories to make them relatable. The bad guys are bad; they may be different levels of bad, but they’re bad just the same.

I am heavily skirting around anything that might be considered a major spoiler, intentionally not naming some of the supporting cast or villains. I highly recommend this trilogy, and the associated short stories.

Speaking of which…

Related Short Stories:

·       “Three” (in the anthology Blood Sacraments)

·       “Intercession” (in the anthology Wings: Subversive Gay Angel Erotica)

·       “Possession” (in the anthology Erotica Exotica: Tales of Sex and Magic)

·       “Necessary Evils” (in the anthology Raising Hell: Demonic Gay Erotica)

·       “Bound” (in the anthology Not Just Another Pretty Face)

As you can tell by the titles of the anthologies, our three heroes made their debut, and several subsequent appearances, in erotica anthologies. I enjoyed all five of these stories, only one of which I think I read before the first novel came out. But I know explicit, or even close-to-explicit, sex scenes are not for everyone, which is why I mentioned near the start of this that you can read the novels without reading the associated short stories. But if you don’t mind a bit of sex in your fiction, these stories absolutely enhance the action of the main novels and add depth to a few of the supporting characters.

Highly recommended if you enjoy urban fantasy with gay male leads, interesting world-building, and strong representation of polyamorous relationships.

Sunday Shorts: Valentine's Dave

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. I’ve considered promising to review a short story every day, but that’s a lot of pressure. And while no one will fault me if I miss days, I’ll feel guilty, which will lead to not posting at all. So better to stick to a weekly post highlighting a couple/three stories, as I’ve done in the past.

At the start of the month, editor Lee Blair published Candy Hearts: An LGBTQIA2S+ Charity Anthology, an e-book collection of 16 romance novellas featuring, as one might be able to guess from the title, LGBTQIA2S+ characters. The collection is available for only a limited time, and all proceeds go to the Transgender Law Center and the National Center for Transgender Equality – in my opinion a pair of organizations that absolutely deserve our support. So I’m urging anyone who loves romance to pick the anthology up while it’s available – and even if you don’t love romance, pick it up anyway! Then gift it to someone you know who does love the romance genre while supporting an excellent cause.

Upon opening my copy, I did something I almost never do with anthologies. Instead of reading the stories in order (which I prefer to do because I know how much effort anthology editors put into determining story order), I jumped straight to ‘Nathan Burgoine’s novella – because it is set in the Little Village, and thus connects to the novellas in Burgoine’s “BitterSweets Club” series, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. (A neat little bit of timing/serendipity/whatever you want to call it, that my first “Sunday Shorts” post of the year directly connects to my first “Series Saturday” post.)

Valentine’s Dave by ‘Nathan Burgoine

Dave has had a pretty disastrous streak of Valentine’s Day dates – from the married man to the barfer to the “coffee incident” – but he’s hopeful that this year he can break the streak through a “Secret Admirer” messaging program administered by the Village Business Council and with a little help from his roommate/best friend Asher. Asher is a recent cancer survivor, coming out the other side of chemo, and seems content to help his bestie find romance rather than seek it out himself. Dave has a crush on Victor, a “silver fox” of a veterinarian. Problem is: Dave is not at his most eloquent when it comes to sending secret messages to a cute guy. Luckily, Asher has a way with words. Of course, complications ensue on the path to happily ever after.

Burgoine is not the first author to run a gay spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, to be sure (although I can honestly say I’ve never read another such book, I’m sure they must be out there). But in standard Burgoine fashion, he tweaks the original story by merging it with another standard romance trope (which, if I made it explicit here, would spoil the ending, and I am loath to do that). This combination of tropes makes the story a little twistier, adding just enough inter-character angst to keep the story interesting without causing the reader undue anxiety.

I found Dave’s verbal and physical awkwardness endearing, and his obliviousness a bit too relatable (I tend to be, shall we say, a bit blind when it comes to whether other men are interested in me). Asher’s post-chemotherapy struggles with energy, and his declaring “Are you okay” a forbidden question, was also relatable as a colon cancer survivor myself. I remember the on-set of sudden, unexpected (even though I should have expected it) fatigue in the midst of an afternoon out with friends very well, and I think Burgoine captured it perfectly. I also enjoyed the view of Dave and Asher’s friend group; I think it’s always important to recognize that love doesn’t happen in a vacuum, that outside forces, including caring support from found family, have an effect (thankfully, in this case, positive) on the way romantic relationships form.

As a regular reader of Burgoine’s work, I was overjoyed to see references to members of the BitterSweets Club, and I loved how this novella gives us a tour of the various queer-friendly (and queer-owned) businesses in the Village. If you’ve never read anything by ‘Nathan Burgoine, this novella is a great introduction to the world his characters inhabit – but not in a way that detracts or distracts at all from the main story, which is a wonderful romance.

I’m hoping to post about other novellas in Candy Hearts between now and Valentine’s day. In the meantime, you can read my thoughts on ‘Nathan Burgoine’s other holiday-themed romance novellas featuring the BitterSweets Club in this Series Saturday post.

I’m not a total stranger to writing romance, either. My supernatural gay love story Paradise Fears can be read free here on my website.

SERIES SATURDAY: THE BITTERSWEETS CLUB

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics.

Series cover art by Inkspiral Designs

It’s a little past the season, but I thought I’d relaunch regular Series Saturday posts with a look at what has become one of my annual re-reads: a set of holiday-themed novellas, three of which take place at Christmas (and the other on April Fool’s Day).

The Little Village novellas (4 volumes)

Written by ‘Nathan Burgoine

published by Bold Stroke Books (2019 – 2022)

Titles:

·       Handmade Holidays

·       Faux Ho Ho

·       Village Fool

·       Felix Navidad

A substantial number, if not all, of ‘Nathan Burgoine’s novels and short stories interconnect, with his fictionalized version of Ottawa’s Gay Village as a shared setting. Main characters in one story will play supporting roles or make cameo appearances in others, local businesses with names like Body Positive, NiceTeas, and Bittersweets recur, incidents are mentioned in passing, lending all the stories a shared history and timeline. Part of the fun of reading any Burgoine work is figuring out how it connects to all his other work. Some are more obviously connected than others, such as those identified as “Little Village novellas” on the cover – and in particular, the quartet of romance novellas featuring a group of friends called “the Bittersweets Club.”

The Bittersweets Club are four friends who meet regularly at the titular coffee shop: graphic designer Ru, the quippiest member of the group; software designer Silas, the most socially awkward; I.T. Specialist Owen, who still bears the mental and physical scars of a bad car accident; and home health aide nurse Felix, who never met a practical joke he didn’t love and never met a man he did. Each man’s road to romance gets its own novella focused, as mentioned above, on a particular holiday,

What I love about this series as a whole is how sweet and straightforward each book is. These are books about gay men finding love, yes, but also about friends nurturing each other and the strength of “found family.” They have just the right amount of “will they get together or won’t they” angst, are playful with the tropes of the romance genre, and all have HEA (Happily Ever After) or at least HFN (Happy For Now) endings. Which is not to say the stories are completely light or frivolous. Burgoine’s romances are always grounded in our very real current culture, where queer people still have to check their surroundings before holding hands or kissing in public, where birth families still disown gay children, where transphobia is very real even within the LGBTQ+ community. I always appreciate Burgoine’s refusal to paint his stories into some rosy world where homophobia is a thing of the past. Because it isn’t.

Though they share characters and a timeline, each of the four novellas stands alone and thus can be read in any order. References are made to events in the other books, but always in a way that does not make the reader feel like they’re missing vital information for the story at hand and I think in a way that intrigues the reader enough to seek out the other books regardless of which one you start with.

That said, I’ll discuss the books in publication order since that’s the order in which I read them.

Handmade Holidays

Handmade Holidays is Ru’s story, even though he is not the focal character. That would be bookstore manager and budding author Nick. Disowned at nineteen but his family for the “sin” of being gay, Nick begins to build his own traditions with a found family that includes his best friend Ru. The only novella in the series told in strict chronological order, each chapter covers an important Christmas in Nick’s life, and therefore Ru’s, as the friends navigate unsuccessful relationships, changes in employment, parental illnesses, and the growth of their found family. This is also the novella with the longest timespan, stretching over 15 years of Nick and Ru’s lives. I love the pacing of this book. Burgoine packs so many major life events in and manages to make it feel neither rushed nor lacking in detail. It’s also a wonderful take on the “friends to lovers” trope, as Nick and Ru bounce off of each other and second-guess their feelings, the timing never feeling quite right – until one of them takes a risk. It all feels totally authentic. And as with all the Little Village romances, both leads are men I’d like to know in real life.

Faux Ho Ho

But lifelong friends finally admitting they’re in love with each other can have repercussions on their friend group. When Nick and Ru move in together, Ru’s roommate Silas is left in search of someone to share the rent with. The apartment is perfectly placed above Bittersweets, but Silas’ pay as a freelance IT consultant and software designer won’t cover the rent and he knows that asking his conservative and politically powerful parents (who tolerate Silas for the optics more than anything) for help will come with strings attached. Silas is skeptical when Ru suggests he consider personal trainer Dino as a new roommate. Big, burly bodybuilders do not really fit in the Silas Waite Venn Diagram of Life. But as they get to know each other, Dino causes Silas to readjust his outlook. Told in Burgoine’s signature style – that is, chapters that alternate between the present and the past to heighten the story’s tension (juxtaposing “what will happen next” with “how did the characters get to this point”), Faux Ho Ho plays with both the “opposites attract” and “fake relationship” tropes. To get Silas out of spending Thanksgiving with his very conservative family, Dino pretends to be Silas’ boyfriend … which inspires Silas’ sister to finally marry her boyfriend because now Silas can attend with a date, which she knows will piss off their parents and siblings. I love how Silas and Dino bring out the best in each other. I love the contrast between Dino’s family, who all instantly love Silas and go along with the “fake relationship” hoping it will turn real, and Silas’ family, who (other than his wonderfully supportive sister and her fiancée) are only okay with Silas being gay as long as he stays quiet and single. And I love the themes of found family what it really means to be an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community that Burgoine continues to thread through these books.

Village Fool

Village Fool is the only “Bittersweets Club” novella which does not take place on or around the Christmas holidays. While this is Owen’s story from start to finish, the main action is incited by Felix’s impulsiveness. He plays an April Fool’s joke on Owen, switching Owen’s phone contacts so when Owen thinks he’s texting Felix, he’s really texting his unrequited crush Toma. The fact that Toma is Owen’s physiotherapist complicates matters even more. Like Faux Ho Ho, the chapters in Village Fool alternate between the present, where we see the set-up of the practical joke, how it plays out, and the immediate aftermath, and the past, where we see how the Bittersweets Club formed, how Owen met Toma and how their mutual crushes (this is not really a spoiler) developed. One of the things I love about this book is the way Burgoine presents Owen’s anxiety and insecurity as compared to Silas’s in Faux Ho Ho; the author is very conscious of the fact that no two people’s anxiety, insecurity, or depression operate the same way and makes sure that Own and Silas are not cookie-cutter stereotypes. They have certain commonalities (just as Ru and Felix, the group extroverts, do) but their coping mechanisms, as well as their formative backgrounds, are quite different.

Felix Navidad

The final “Bittersweets Club” novella is all about Felix, but it also ties the series’ subplots together in a nice little bow. Ru and Nick are finally getting married, after Covid forced them to delay. Owen and Toma and Silas and Dino are of course going together, but Felix is going solo. He’s had a rough year but is also still feeling the sting of how his impulsive April Fool’s gag affected Owen, even though everything turned out okay. The story alternates between the present holiday, (where Felix and another wedding guest, Ru’s ex Kevin, end up stuck in a cabin that only has one bed, thanks to a massive blizzard), and the past year (with Ru getting to know a new patient, retiree Danya, who has a thing or two to say about Felix’s lack of a social or romantic life). In the “present holiday” chapters, Burgoine moves from one classic trope (the “blind date misunderstanding”) to another (forced proximity/one bed) so smoothly you almost don’t realize it’s happening … and manages to tweak both in very satisfactory ways. The flashback chapters focus on Felix’s growing friendship with sickly but still effervescent Danya, and they are an amazing look at how intergenerational friendships in the gay community should (but all too often don’t) work. Burgoine often comments on how hard it is for younger queer folk to learn our community’s history, because so many of those who should be our elders were taken away from us by the AIDS epidemic. But here, he reminds us that some of that history is still living, still vital – if only younger folks are willing to pay attention, learn, and develop actual connection with our elders. Danya’s illness (NOT AIDS, I feel like I must stress) is a major part of the flashback chapters but please don’t think this means the book is depressing. It is not. It’s as sweet and cute and romantic as the other books in the series – but it also doesn’t shy away from the reality that often joy and sorrow walk beside each other.

While books focused on the “Bittersweets Club” may be done for now, Burgoine isn’t done with gay romances set at the holidays in the Little Village. He recently teased plans for a series featuring a new group of Little Village residents taking place on holidays other than Christmas, and I don’t need to tell you I’m here for them all. He’s also got plans for non-holiday romances building out some of the characters and locations we’ve met along with the Bittersweets guys. In fact, A Little Village Blend is already out in the world.

So: what are your favorite holiday-set LGBTQIA+ romances? Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: A LITTLE VILLAGE BLEND

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.

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.

Top Ten(ish): Christmas Books

Top Ten(ish) is exactly what it sounds like: I list of ten or so of my favorite things that have something in common (books by the same author or editor or publisher; music by the same band/performer, etc.). The (ish) allows me to run slightly higher or lower, because exactly 10 is often hard for me to decide. Note: they’re MY favorites, for a variety of reasons not always having to do with quality alone. I’m not saying they are The Best (in fact, I never make that determination, about anything). Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV). Please, don’t yuck my yum and tell me how I’m completely wrong about anything on this list.

Since it’s the night before Christmas, here’s my Top Ten(ish) Christmas books, in no particular order other than #1:

1.       A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: I sincerely doubt anything will ever knock this novel from the top spot. I have re-read it every year for as long as I can remember, one “Stave” (chapter) per night starting on December 21st so that Scrooge awakens a changed man on the morning of December 25th. I also usually watch at least one movie version and listen to at least one audiobook version sometime during the month of December. It’s probably the first novella I ever read (holiday or not), and you’ll notice quite a few novellas on this list. I am typically not a Dickens fan, but you’d never know that based on how much I love this book.

2.       Homemade Holidays / Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine: Speaking of novellas. I was never a real big romance reader, until I started reading ‘Nathan Burgoine. Granted, I started with his more paranormal romance Triad series, but I guess that was the gateway drug. Like the Carol, ‘Nathan’s two (so far) gay romance novellas that take place at Christmas time have become annual re-reads. Homemade Holidays is about a span of years in the life of a young gay writer who was disowned by his family and how he builds new traditions, and a new family, around himself, including finding true love. Faux Ho Ho is a classic “fake relationship” story: the gay son of a rich Conservative family pretends his platonic roommate is his boyfriend to get out of traveling home for Thanksgiving, but then the couple gets invited to his sister’s wedding. Sparks fly, but the truth – and love – will out. (I’d also like to mention that ‘Nathan rewrites a classic Christmas tale through a gay lens every year on his website, and this year’s tale is a take on “Jingle Bells” that is really terrific. I can’t wait until he has enough of these to print a collection.) I wrote a review of Handmade Holidays you can find here and can’t believe I haven’t reviewed Faux Ho Ho yet.

3.       State v. Claus by P. Jo Anne Burgh: Sometimes a book just “clicks.” This year, it was State v. Claus, in which Connecticut lawyer Meg Riley finds herself defending a man who claims to be the son of Santa Claus from a home-invasion charge … and finds herself falling in love and learning to believe in the magic of Christmas again. I reviewed it in full earlier this week, but just can’t recommend it enough. Like most of the books on this list, it’s likely to become a frequent, if not annual, reread.

4.       A Wish for Wings That Work / Red Ranger Came Calling by Berke Breathed: Anyone who knows my love of the comic strip Bloom County will not be surprised to see either of these books on the list. A Wish for Wings That Work stars Bloom County’s penguin Opus, wishing he could do what other birds could do. Red Ranger Came Calling is another tale of Christmas magic that doesn’t feature any Bloom County characters but is an endearing tale about, again, the magic of belief.

5.       How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss: I mean … ‘nuff said, amirite?  (Okay … it’s also my favorite Seuss book, the first Christmas book I ever read to my nieces and nephews, and I cannot read it without hearing Boris Karloff in my head.)

6.       A Wish to Be A Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe (illustrated by Michael Glenn Monroe): A tall, aged pine tree grows in the forest, left behind every year as humans come and pick other trees to cut down and take home. The animals of the forest rally to lift the tree’s spirits and show it that it is loved. A simple, yet surprisingly powerful, picture book about loneliness at the holidays and the power of friendship.

7.       If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear: Ken Scholes’ novelette looks at a different but still recognizable holiday tradition on a faraway planet, through the eyes of a young woman who has lost her father and lost her hope but who goes through the motions of the holiday traditions because her father would want her to. Along the way, Scholes muses not just on tradition but family expectation, community (the good and less-good aspects) and how hope can be found in the smallest of spaces. I wrote a full review last year around this time.

8.       Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis: There are quite a few Christmas/Winter short story collections and anthologies on my shelf. Most of them I have to admit I’ve re-read a story or two out of every so often, but this Connie Willis collection is the only one I’ve read more than once cover-to-cover. The stories are humorous and touching, the characters relatable and familiar. I can’t even attempt to pick a favorite or two out of the eight in the hardcover edition from 1999 that I have. The book has been re-issued with extra stories under the title A Lot Like Christmas. I really should pick the expanded edition up.

9.       The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas / A Full House by Madeleine L’Engle: If I were to do a Top Ten(ish) Favorite Authors list, L’Engle would be on it. I loved the Wrinkle in Time books, of course, but I loved the Austin Family series just as much. I wanted to be best friends with Vicky Austin and, if we’re being honest, tween and early-teen me absolutely had a crush on her older brother John. While the main Austin books are YA, these two are illustrated Young Reader books. The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas is narrated by seven-year-old Vicky, who is concerned the holiday will be impacted by the arrival of the newest Austin child, while A Full House is narrated by Mama Austin and centers on a homeless pregnant girl who shows up on their doorstep. Both are moving stories about the power of family, of love, and of community.

10.   The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg: I tried not to put too many picture books on this list (I have … well, a bunch), but besides The Grinch, this is the one I go back to pretty often, largely because of the beautiful artwork by Van Allsburg.

11.   The Book of Christmas (Time-Life Enchanted World series): Over the years, I’ve lost or given away most of the lavish hardcover Time-Life Library books I acquired in high school and shortly thereafter. But there are two volumes from Time-Life’s The Enchanted World series that I’ve never parted with. One is The Fall of Camelot (because hi, Arthurian-obsessed writer here) and the other is this one. The book doesn’t just concentrate on the Birth of Christ and various iterations of Santa Claus, but also includes a look at a number of other Winter holidays, carols, and traditions. In fact, a particular page and illustration in this book inspired my second Christmas novella, which will hopefully be out next year.

12.   A Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick: a beautiful photography book about a group of animals encountering a snowy stranger in the woods. Not so much a Christmas story as a tale about winter and the peaceful co-existence of humans and wildlife, it’s every bit as cute as it sounds.

13.   A Family for Christmas by Jay Northcote: It’s ‘Nathan Burgoine’s fault that I’m reading so much gay Christmas romance this year. I read this novella for the first time last year and am re-reading it now amidst a veritable avalanche of other gay romance. Another “fake relationship” story with endearing main characters and a happy ending. I am not well-red in the romance field (as I mentioned), but on the strength of this one, Northcote joined Burgoine as a go-to as I explore the field more, and A Family For Christmas joins Burgoine’s novellas on the frequent reread list.

14.   DC Super-Star Holiday Special, 1980, by various writers and artists: Yes, it’s a comic book, an anthology title including stories with Batman, Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and DC’s horror comics hosts of the era. Like the Carol, it’s a book I’ve reread every year since 1980. Still the same copy, with subscription coupons cut out and all. As much as I loved super-hero Christmas stories, you’d think I’d have kept more of them over the years (particularly DC’s tabloid and digest-size Christmas with the Super-Heroes and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer editions, and Marvel’s tabloids as well). I should look into rebuilding that collection. But even if I do, nothing will ever supplant this particular comic in my heart.

Okay, friends: your turn! Hit the comments and tell me what your favorite Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Yule/Ramadan/Solstice/etc. books are – but please do so without denigrating what other people love.

Most of the books mentioned in this post.

a better picture of the DC Holiday Special cover. Smiling Batman! Remember those days?

I may have become slightly obsessed with gay holiday romances, guys.

PRIDE 2020 INTERVIEWS: 'Nathan Burgoine

Today’s Pride 2020 interview is with author ‘Nathan Burgoine:

Hi, ’Nathan! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during current events. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated in these unusual times?

About a month before the lockdown began, my dog, Max (short for Maximum, his default setting) launched himself at a squirrel on a snow-drift behind me and to the left, pulling my left arm all the way around my body, suddenly and at a terrible angle, and blowing a bunch of my tendons. I was in physiotherapy, getting dry-needling, TENS, and so forth, trying to recover the use of my left hand especially (I still can’t quite type, or at least, not for long), so all writing kind of crashed to a halt, and is still pretty much at a halt.

But I like to remind other people when they’re stuck how much of writing is as much in your head as words on paper, so I am trying to remind myself of that. I’ve scribbled notes and scenes (I’m right handed, so I can at least scribble on paper), and I can accomplish little bursts when my hand cooperates. Mostly? I’ve given myself permission not to be creative on any sort of scale beyond what I can manage, at least until I can get back to physiotherapy.

Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how has being gay influenced or informed your writing?

The short answer: in almost every way.

The long answer: I approach writing from a “what if this is the first time someone queer sees themself?” most of the time, especially if I’m writing stories with a remotely heavy (and queer) topic. We all know the damage done by terrible representation, and while I’m not mister roses-and-sunshine, I do try very hard to make sure that even in darker toned stories there is hope, or at the very least a range of hopeful queer characters. Not that I write many dark stories at all. I’ve touched on horror only once.

Even in the happy stories, though—like romance—I also want to do my best to write characters who are facing down the realities of queerness without shying away from the impact of those realities. A few of my novellas have specifically been born from frustration in particular plot patterns repeating that shut the door on me as a queer reader with my own queer lived experiences. I think I had a lightbulb moment a year or two ago where I realized I couldn’t write an “everyqueer,” but I could write a specific person with experiences that mirrored the queerness I see all around me, and that’s been liberating even as it’s doubled down on the sense of responsibility.

You’re almost halfway through a really cool project on your blog: reviewing one short story per day for the entire year. What inspired you to take this project on?

It’s no secret that I’m a lover of short fiction, and also that I get frustrated at the short shrift it gets (no pun intended). I put a lot of the “I don’t like short fiction” attitude down to what we were forced to read in school (even I didn’t like many of those, especially the ones chosen for us in high school), and it colouring opinions even after graduation. Much like how when you talk about Canadian books and many readers kind of glaze over with “Oh no!” looks in their eyes because their only exposure to CanLit was the stuff forced upon them in high school.

Talking about a story I loved every day isn’t hard work (or, well, wasn’t until I blew those tendons, but I’m managing), and if even a couple of people decide to pick up an anthology or collection because of what I’ve said, that’s a win.

Also, as an author, I’m a slow producer to begin with, and completely stuck right now. I have almost nothing to talk to my readership about right now that’s from me, but recommending others? That I can do without blinking. You can take the bookseller out of the bookstore, etcetera.

How are you choosing the stories you’ll review? Is there any rhyme-or-reason to which authors, genres, etc. you’re featuring when?

A little bit of reason, but mostly not. In February I only spoke about stories written by Black authors, and in June I’ve been focusing on queer authors (and being conscious of not only talking about white-cis-male queer authors, especially). October will be horror (well, horror-ish. I don’t read a lot of horror, so…) Early December will likely be full of holiday novellas. And I try not to talk about the same book within a week, so if it’s an anthology or a collection, the “next” story won’t appear until at least a week goes by, so books where I’ve really enjoyed a lot of the stories are taking months to complete, and that’s kind of fun. I have a chart, and I write the blogs as I finish the stories, so sometimes I’m many days ahead with blogs to go, and then other times I realize I’ve got four more until there’s a day without a blog lined up, and I need to dive back into my pile of anthologies, collections, novellas, and magazines and put down the book I’m loving.

So… borderline organized chaos?

I know thanks to physical issues you’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from working on your next novel or short stories. How are things on that front?

I hate it. J

I talk a really good game with my author friends about being okay with low word-counts and taking time to recharge the creative batteries, but I honestly loathe this right now. That said, I did manage to tune up a trunked tale (it’s about nine thousand words long, so it never found a home), and I’m going to take this opportunity to attempt a self-publishing release given the stakes are so low. It’s a comedic and erotic story (which is another reason it never found a home), and we’ll see how that goes, but it’s giving me a project I can poke at with zero time limits.

That is one saving grace: I’m really lucky this happened before I signed a contract and had deadlines. As much as I’m hating not being able to type properly, at least I’m not having to force myself to do it through injury.

I absolutely loved Of Echoes Born, your collection of connected short stories taking place in The Village. Can you tell us a bit about what inspired The Village, and what keeps drawing you back there to tell more stories?

Linked short fiction is my favourite as a reader as well as a writer, so I think it just honestly comes down to being the sandbox where I like to play the most. Also, it allows me to build on what came before without the daunting task of plotting out a whole series ahead of time (it’s much harder to write yourself into a corner with linked short fiction, as you can shift to another character, or if I realize I’ve maybe given a character a bit too much magic or power or closed off plot avenues by giving them a specific gift, say, I haven’t wrecked future stories, just narrowed options for that specific character).

The Village is also my love-letter to the way the queer community was when I originally came out, and while I love so many of the changes that have happened in the past decades, I do mourn the strip/shops that used to be, and so having a dash of magic reinvigorate a fictional version of that place is as much homage as it is wish fulfillment, but also a way to talk about our history for some readers who maybe weren’t there for it and haven’t bumped into it yet, which was basically the whole point of Of Echoes Born, really.

And finally, where can people find you and your work online?

If you head on over to nathanburgoine.com, there’s a handy tag on the blog where you can find all my published work, with links even! But there’s also a tab for some free short fictions I’ve written if you wanted to take me for a test run first.

 ‘Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction, and was followed by dozens of short stories. His first collection of short fiction, Of Echoes Born, is now available through Bold Strokes Books, and includes six stories unique to the collection. Despite preferring the shorter fiction life, he’s also released three novellas (In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, and Faux Ho Ho), co-authored a fourth novella (Saving the Date), and written three novels for adults (Light, Triad Blood, and Triad Magic), and one for young adults (Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks), all between walking his rescued husky a lot, usually alongside his husband, Dan. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Guest Post: Connecting A Village by 'Nathan Burgoine

It’s no secret that I love fictional worlds, whether they’re as vast as a space sector or as intimate as an apartment building. Characters who cross over into each others’ stories, whether as main/supporting characters or winking in-passing references, really make my day. It’s fun teasing those “easter eggs” out when authors pay tribute to a favorite writer or character, but it’s even more fun when an author creates, across stories, an interconnected world. ‘Nathan Burgoine does that in his stories of The Village, the most recent of which, Faux Ho Ho, is available now from Bold Strokes Books. Today, ‘Nathan visits us to discuss how to connect a Village….

Connecting a Village by ‘Nathan Burgoine

When it comes to stories centered around the holidays, I often find myself removed. Sometimes, I mean that literally: when was the last time you saw one of those Hallmark-esque movies including a queer person at all, let alone a queer person with a chosen family of queer people surrounding them? Sometimes, I mean it figuratively: even when you do find the occasional story with a queer main character, if there’s any strain from a familial sense, it’s often resolved with a bow, snowflakes, and tinsel before the credits roll or the epilogue concludes. It’s a yearly frustration, and it very much led to my first foray into queer holiday romance, Handmade Holidays.

Handmade Holidays is all about a chosen family, and how they gather, sometimes part, support each other, sometimes unknowingly fail each other, and grow. As it’s a romance, there’s also a core relationship developing throughout the novella, but my main goal was to show these queer people for what they were: as a real a family as any biological one might be, and no less the loving for it.

I honestly thought I was done with holiday stories after that. I tend to write stories with a dash of speculative fiction, but Handmade Holidays didn’t have a speculative element. I had knowingly set it in my fictional Village—a version of Ottawa’s own gay Village, only with that dash of magic and less gentrification—and the Village was definitely a place I wanted to revisit again and again. The Village is, after all, another metaphor for chosen family, and the magic thereof, and takes center stage in my first collection, Of Echoes Born, including what more-or-less sparks off the rebirth of the Village in the included novelette, “A Little Village Magic.”

But another holiday story? No. Unlikely.

Except…

One of the great things about writing romances is the grand love of various tropes. There are shorthand discussion points to the romance genre that grant whole skeletal frameworks to telling a story, and if there’s one I’ve always loved, it’s the fake relationship trope. There’s just something about people only realizing how they feel when they’re pretending to feel it that really makes my little queer heart go pitter-pat, and part of that, I think, is inherent to the queerness: so many of us spend so much time pretending we’re not what we are. A reversal of that, where pretending leads to a truth? It just feels good.

Also? Fake relationship stories are often funny, and I wanted to write something funny to get myself out of a year-long funk. It turned out to be a good idea on that front, and so Faux Ho Ho, contains some moments I hope will tickle the reader: super-awkward dates, some Dungeons & Dragons cartoon cosplay, and maybe a flung jock strap. A pink one, of course.

Faux Ho Ho grew from the notion of wanting to explore a fake relationship trope plot, coupled with wanting to explore chosen family again, but in a slightly different way. I’d seen a queer friend posting a tribute to “those of us who look at the holidays like a chore of endurance” or something similar, about spending time with families that weren’t outright hostile, but weren’t welcoming, either. Or a mixed bag, where there were family members who were great and loving worth withstanding other family members, who weren’t.

Those two thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone, and it occurred to me that having a fake partner to take home for the holidays would be like bringing a small piece of a chosen family home as backup to get through a difficult time. After that, Faux Ho Ho began to fall into place.

Chosen family meant connections, and so I found myself back in the Village, eyeing the characters who’d come before, looking for an entry point. I knew I wanted someone gregarious for the role of fake boyfriend, and the most outgoing character I’d written thus far was Fiona, an outspoken lesbian who—like Handmade Holidays main character Nick—had been disowned and disconnected from her own family when she came out. In Handmade Holidays, Fiona eventually opens up her own gym, Body Positive, where the mandate is to make sure everyone, no matter how they feel about their body, has a place to foster a more positive relationship with their body and their health.

Having a trainer who worked for Fiona be the fake boyfriend became the first piece of the puzzle, and Dino was born.

Connecting Dino to Handmade Holidays and the Village in general meant I could ground the hero of Faux Ho Ho in the close-knit community I’d already crafted, which as a writer felt akin to putting on a warm sweater I already knew would fit. Silas, a geeky computer programmer type, wasn’t going to be a person who was naturally outgoing, so I eyed my stable of characters and almost immediately decided he’d be connected to Ru, the love interest of Handmade Holidays, who is blunt, outgoing, and doesn’t stand for letting a friend stay on the sidelines when they deserve to be front and center.

During Handmade Holidays, Ru leaves Ottawa to look after his father for a few years, and then returns. When he returns, it’s a quick decision, and he has nowhere to stay immediately, though it’s intimated he couch-surfs with the rest of the characters for a while. At that point, it struck me I had a great way to introduce Silas, and to create the very reason for Silas and Dino to know each other: Silas would be Ru’s roommate, and given the concluding events of Handmade Holidays, Silas would at some point be looking for a new roommate, once Ru moved out.

That became my starting point. Silas and Dino, have been living together as roommates for nine months at the start of Faux Ho Ho, and when Silas is faced with going home for a Thanksgiving event he really, really doesn’t want to attend, Dino jumps in and pretends to be his boyfriend, citing a prior commitment to his own family, and Silas has a graceful out. Neither thinks much of it after that, except when an invitation shows up later for Silas’s sister’s Christmas wedding.

Which is when the whole “fake boyfriend” thing really takes off. Like, in a plane, all the way back to Alberta where Silas’s family lives.

In a similar way to how Handmade Holidays moves through time, a year or two between each chapter, Faux Ho Ho alternates between the present in Alberta and the past nine months that Silas and Dino have spent together as roommates. So much of their time together involves the chosen family of the Village, not just Fiona and Ru, but also Nick, and Phoebe (a trans woman first introduced in Handmade Holidays, who owns and operates a consignment fashion shop we’ve seen before in Saving the Date), Fiona’s wife Jenn and their two kids, Reed and Melody, as well as a few new faces, most importantly Felix and Owen, who make up a quartet alongside Ru and Silas of friends who hang out at Bittersweets (the Village coffee shop) on a weekly basis to catch each other up on their lives.

They also play D&D and board games, because if I’m going to write queer stories, I’m going to include queer nerds out of solidarity for my people. Silas also plays the cleric, which, for my fellow D&D nerds, was a conscious choice that says a lot about who he is.

The chapters where Silas is at home, surrounded by his Village friends and living the life he’s chosen for himself are full of connections. The chapters where Silas is back in Alberta, with his family (but with Dino for backup) are an opportunity to show what those connections have done for him, and how he’s changed in his time in the Village. That was the facet of Chosen Family I really wanted to focus on this time with Faux Ho Ho: how much we grow when we finally get to be the person we are, when we finally find back-up and support.

And although Faux Ho Ho can absolutely be read as a standalone, I don’t think it’s a story I could have written without all the other stories that came before. The short fictions in Of Echoes Born, and the novellas Handmade Holidays and Saving the Date, gave me the confidence to write a character completely bolstered by the support of a good, loving, accepting community because I could picture all of them so clearly. I had a Village, so to speak.

Like Handmade Holidays, I made the choice to stick to something completely contemporary, though the fellas do hang out in Bittersweets and they do mention going to Avery’s chocolate shop from “Vanilla” (another short story set in the Village, where the proprietor has a habit of adding a mystical oomph to anything he crafts by hand, including his chocolates). Faux Ho Ho doesn’t have a speculative element, but that’s not to say there’s no magic. It’s just this time the magic is the kind found in the strength of support and community, pride, and a really well-timed kickboxing lesson or two.

--

’Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he’s had dozens of shorter fictions published, including releasing his first collection Of Echoes Born. He does sometimes write longer things, including novellas (In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, and Saving the Date) and has crossed the line into novel-writing, too. His debut novel, Light, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and since then he’s released two urban paranormal novels, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, and a contemporary speculative YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. He lives in Ottawa, Canada with his husband and their rescued husky. You can find him online at NathanBurgoine.com.

Review of EXIT PLANS FOR TEENAGE FREAKS

TITLE: Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine

234 pages, Bold Stroke Books, ISBN 9781635550986 (paperback)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): Being the kid abducted by old Ms. Easton when he was four permanently set Cole’s status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down. When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he’s either more deluded than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported.

Now every door is an accident waiting to happen – especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he’s gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they’ll go to any length to make it happen. Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide.

Time for a new exit plan.

MY RATING: five out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS:

‘Nathan Burgoine’s YA science fiction debut is fast, funny, heart-warming, angsty (without being angst-ridden), refreshing, authentic … and it is populated by one of the most diverse casts of teen characters I’ve ever encountered.

The first-person narration by Cole is so authentic -- he’s not just another snappy-sarcastic gay boy (although he has his moments). He is occasionally clumsy (physically and verbally), sometimes confused about where his life is headed, but always thinking about his friends and family. He self-describes as a bit of an obsessive-compulsive when it comes to list-making. He really just wants to be “normal” – and while in other authorial hands that might mean a trip down “self-loathing gay lane” before coming to terms with his sexuality, Burgoine gives us a character who is already out, has a great support system, and really just wishes he could just not be “the kid everyone talks about because of what happened thirteen years ago.” I was drawn to him not because he’s who I was as a teen (I was nowhere near out, nowhere near as organized, and nowhere near as sure of what I wanted to do with my life), but because he expresses himself in such a way that you feel what he’s feeling, all of the anxiety and confusion and exhilaration and joy of his arc.

The supporting cast share a love and concern for Cole, but otherwise they are as different as it’s possible for a group of friends to be. There’s the Rhonda and Lindsay, the intimate lesbian couple: Greyson, a fellow gay boy who is as bombastic as Cole is shy; Nat, the gender neutral calming influence with their own insecurities to overcome; Alec, the asexual best friend at odds with Greyson; and the athletic, somewhat mysterious, outlier of the friend group, Malik. Listed like that, it sounds like Burgoine just ticked off boxes on the queer spectrum, but these characters are more than just “what kind of queer they are.” I loved seeing a YA novel where the main character’s circle is full of other gender and sexual identities rather than being the token gay guy coming out to a group of straight friends. These characters are already out to each other at the start of the book, and most of them are out to their families (although we never see them), to their schoolmates, teachers, even local business folk. I also loved reading a novel where the bullying of queer kids is addressed without it becoming the main plot. The bullies in Cole’s life are tertiary characters at best; acknowledged but not empowered.

But Cole’s friends are not the sum-total of his support group. The adults in Cole’s life, from the local game-and-coffee-shop owner to teachers to Cole’s parents, are actively involved and support him. They may not be aware of the unusual things he’s experiencing, but they do their best to react with love and helpfulness to what they do think is going on (for instance, thinking a bully shoved Cole in a locker, since Cole can’t come right out and admit he teleported himself in there). Not only are Cole’s parents loving and supportive of their son – Dad (who is deaf) is a role model for Cole in terms of personality and career choice (Dad is a translator and advocate for other hearing-impaired folks).

This was the first YA/MG book I read recently where the adult characters are not sidelined, oblivious, or actively working against the main character. (The second was Carlos Hernandez’s Sal & Gabi Break the Universe). Okay, that’s a bit too much of a blanket statement, as the creepy bad guys, when we finally encounter them, turn out to be mostly adults. But they’re the exception which proves the rule governing the rest of the adult characters.

The SF aspect of the book is as well developed as one expects from Burgoine’s short stories – there’s an underlying “science” to how and why the teleportation works, there are hints that this is the same universe as the stories in Burgoine’s collection Of Echoes Borne. The slow reveal of exactly what’s going on with Cole, why he’s being watched, who the creepy watchers are and what they want … it’s all really excellently paced. And even the nominal villains of the piece are more than just tropes. They have personalities.

While the focus of the book is on Cole’s developing teleportation ability and the danger it puts him in, there are also subplots for the friends – interpersonal relationship and trust issues endemic to any high school group – and of course there’s the slow-burn romantic arc around Cole’s crush on Malik. I like slow-burn romance, and this one is so well-paced you can’t imagine the book without it.

Here’s hoping we get to see much more of Cole, his friends, his stalkers, Malik, and this world.

Review of 'Nathan Burgoine's HANDMADE HOLIDAYS

HANDMADE HOLIDAYS, ISBN 9781947904354, 82 pgs, $2.99 (Kindle, no print edition)

‘Nathan Burgoine, NineStar Press

PREMISE: (From Goodreads.com)

At nineteen, Nick is alone for the holidays and facing reality: this is how it will be from now on. Refusing to give up completely, Nick buys a Christmas tree, and then realizes he has no ornaments. A bare tree and an empty apartment aren’t a great start, but a visit from his friend Haruto is just the ticket to get him through this first, worst, Christmas. A box of candy canes and a hastily folded paper crane might not be the best ornaments, but it’s a place to start.

A year later, Nick has realized he’s not the only one with nowhere to go, and he hosts his first “Christmas for the Misfit Toys.” Haruto brings Nick an ornament for Nick’s tree, and a tradition—and a new family—is born.

As years go by, Nick, Haruto, and their friends face love, betrayal, life, and death. Every ornament on Nick’s tree is another year, another story, and another chance at the one thing Nick has wanted since the start: someone who’d share more than the holidays with him.

Of course, Nick might have already missed his shot at the one, and it might be too late.

Still, after fifteen Christmases, Nick is ready to risk it all for the best present yet.

MY RATING:  Five stars out of five

MY THOUGHTS:   ‘Nathan Burgoine’s new holiday-themed novella is a beautifully-crafted story of chosen family, kindred spirits and the old edict that “timing is everything.”

It’s almost a trope now that we LGBTQ+ folk love to build our own families. Even those of us whose birth-families accepted and encouraged us still build families of the heart to supplement our family of the blood. But for still too many LGBTQ+ people, the chosen family is the only family they have, built up through common experience and shared hobbies when their birth-families have abandoned and disowned them. This is where Burgoine picks up Nick Wilson’s story. We know just enough about Nick’s birth-family to know they exist and that they have thrown him aside because he’s gay. In some other hands, this story would be about a happy holiday reconciliation with the family that abandoned him. But Burgoine is not afraid to start with the hard truth that for some in our community that reconciliation never comes, and let the story develop from there.

Nick’s family-of-the-heart doesn’t appear miraculously on winter’s breath with traditions full-blown. The first Christmas, with only Haruto and candy-cane ornaments, is full of uncertainty and anxiety. It’s also imbued with just a touch of bravado and a healthy camaraderie that let us know right away: while there may be drama and heartbreak ahead, this is not a sad story. It carries the hope that “it gets better” from the first paragraph. Over the first few chapters, and thus the first few years’ worth of developing holiday traditions, we get to see Nick become comfortable with who he is and the family he’s building around himself. Matt, Fiona and Perry bring out different sides of Nick, from the protective to the argumentative. We get to know them as Nick gets to know them, and they are all engaging and interesting. Even the supporting characters who are on stage for far less time (and some of who are far from likeable) are at the least interesting. 

Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a book without complications, distancing, and misunderstandings, and all five of these core characters experience their share. Burgoine heightens that drama by occasionally letting more than one year go by between chapters, allowing for lots to have changed within the group dynamic without having to show us every incremental step in those changes. This time-hopping (but never flash-backing) technique keeps the reader engaged, keeps us wondering what new changes will become apparent with each new chapter, much as we might wonder what news the latest “Christmas Letter” is going to bring from old friends we only hear from once a year.

The novella spans fifteen years in the life of Nick and his friends, experiencing losses and gains. It reads fast and easy, another reason I love ‘Nathan Burgoine’s work: he gives us deep characterization and emotional stakes without dragging the story out any longer than it needs to be. If there’s a personal or sensory detail missing, it didn’t need to be there to begin with. The end of the book comes too fast (because we’ve come to love these characters and don’t want to say goodbye) but also not too fast (because the story has reached a natural, happy, end-point without being forced).  I can’t recommend Handmade Holidays highly enough, and it is definitely going on my annual re-read list.