A Very Genre Christmas Holiday fiction, Gay Romance
Tin Box Press
12/7/21
kindle
115
amazon
Private detective Nick Bozic works the mean streets of 1950s Portland, Oregon, shadowing unfaithful spouses and nabbing thieving employees. He may be lonely, but at least he’s not crooked. Despite the festive season, Christmas simply means less dough in his pocket.
With the holiday only a few days away, a regular client drops a new case on him: yet another being has come through the Rift and needs help finding his way home. Maybe Evindal the elf will help Nick find something too—a bit of cheer and magic amid the usual brew of corruption and betrayal.
REVIEW BY LINDA TONIS
MEMBER OF THE PARANORMA ROMANCE GUILD REVIEW TEAM
Nick Bozic is a private investigator in Portland, Oregon and it is the 1950’s. Once a police officer, he got tired of the corruption perpetrated by the very men who were supposed to be the law. Now on his own and mostly on the straight and narrow he struggles making ends meet. He follows cheating spouses but Christmas is upon them and unfortunately the cheaters are forced to stay close to home so business is slow.
Nick has a nice income from the city thanks to the rift under Sansone Booksellers. Men, women and sometimes hideous creatures are zapped into a cell in the store and his job is to find a way to send them home. When another being arrives due to the rift Nick is called and this job will change his life forever.
The newest arrival is an elf, pointy hat, shoes with bells and pointy ears. Evindale is an elf who works in Mr. Kringle’s workshop, yes that Mr. Kringle the one in the North Pole. Evindale paints toys but now he finds himself in a cell with no idea how he got there. Nick doesn’t think it will be hard to return Evindale because it is the Christmas season and he comes from the North Pole where he works for Santa so trips to anywhere with Christmas decorations and celebrations should be the answer, piece of cake so Nick thinks.
Evindale is the happiest being and my favorite character, he sees joy in everything and his first trip away from the North Pole is filled with one surprise after another. He can’t get enough of rain, elevators, restaurants, books and movies just one thrill after another. While trying to find a way to send Evindale home Nick finds himself beginning to enjoy the things around him that he became blind to, his sad past just made him a sad man with nothing to give him joy. Now this elf has turned his life around and he is beginning to smell the roses.
This novella was the perfect Christmas story in addition to Nick trying to find a way to get Evindale home and enjoying himself another case from a woman covered in mink and jewels jeopardizes Nick and makes him realize what having Evindale in his life has meant. An elf and a lonely disenchanted private investigator have a chance at a HEA but when Evindale returns to the North Pole all Nick would have are memories.
Nick and Evindale are both gay but Evindale lives in a place where it doesn’t matter and Nick lives in the 50’s where being with another man could mean jail and that was the saddest part of this story.