Release Day- REVIEW: Spindle- A Fallen Fairytales Dark MM Romance Book #2- Sean Azinsalt

Title: Spindle
Series: A Fallen Fairytales Dark MM Romance Book #2
Author: Sean Azinsalt
Genre: Dark MM Anthology ,Dystopian Science Fiction, LGBTQ Science Fiction, Gay Romance
Publisher: Independent
Release Date: Jan 30, 2024
Format: Kindle
Pages: 159
Source: Amazon

In the year 2096, Spindle rules the world.

His life is all just a dream, but his reality is starkly different.

Lachlan David, or as he’s known within The Spindle Project, Unit# 1298690, has spent the last seventy years in a state of suspended animation far beneath the surface of the Earth. In his thoughts, he’s lived a rather unremarkable life, with a job, a boyfriend who adores him, and a supportive family. Like everyone else, his head is full of hopes and dreams, and he’s content with the life he believes he lives- blissfully unaware he and almost ninety percent of the world’s population were chosen to save the planet and its dwindling resources in the face of global warming. His life is all a dream.

Pierre Thibaut lives above the ground on an idyllic and thriving Earth with no knowledge of what happened seventy years ago. His father, one of the Earth’s chosen chancellors, keeps Pierre busy under his tutelage and does his part to keep the secret hidden. Under Spindle’s reign there are no countries that dot the world with imaginary borders. There is only the rule of Spindle’s president and his chosen chancellors.

One day all that changes when Pierre discovers the truth about the cost of his happy existence. His eyes lock on a sleeping beauty – a man who seemed so at peace in his slumber that it makes Pierre jealous. His delicate face and long blond hair make Pierre’s heart skip a beat. Then his eyes flutter open for just a second. Sky blue eyes…
Contact.

Everything changed. Pierre will stop at nothing to learn his real name, and to give him a chance to fall in love with him too.
It’s a game of cat and mouse, as they try to awaken the other dreamers and discover what they would do for love.

A dark MM Retelling of Sleeping Beauty set in a futuristic world. Fallen Fairytales is a multi-author, dark M/M romance series. Each book may be read as a standalone, but why not load up your Kindle, kick back, and enjoy sexy men, shenanigans, and deliciously dark fairytale retellings.

Reviewed by Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

Lachlan David lives in an angelic world with his parents and sister, he has a job and a boyfriend and all of it is a dream. Lachlan is unit number 1298690 living in Suspended animation along with billions of others. Unfortunately, his boyfriend is in his dreams, but his dreams seem so real to him.

Pierre Thibaut is living a good life in the real world with his twin brother Paolo and his pops and father. His father is a Chancellor, a powerful position which allows the family to have benefits others don’t. Although unlike Lachlan, Pierre is fully alive, like millions of others in the world he also lives in a game world called ALT created by Spindle. Pierre believes that sims are just part of the game until his world is turned upside down.

Pierre is obsessed with the game in the Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty world where he saw a man he can’t forget. Knowing that the man is a sim he does everything in his power to awaken him but only fails. The man is Lachlan and although Pierre knows he is a sim his love for him is very real. Each level of the game gives him hope that the class coffin Lachlan is sleeping in will open and release his love, but it doesn’t happen until he learns a truth from his father that will crush his world.

Lachlan is not a sim he is a man living in suspended animation for one hundred years because humans finally destroyed Earth. Bad air, no food, clothes, millions of people dead and it was Spindle that finally was able to rebuild. The only problem was that while fixing the air, bringing back animals through science and growing food again there was not enough to support billions, so the only hope was to put them into suspended animation where they were cared for but not living in the real world.

The ALT allowed those in suspended animation to appear to be with family and following the lives they remembered before going to sleep. Lachlan has a dream lover aka Pierre, but he feels real even though he can’t touch him. Lately Lachlan has been hearing voices and feels like he is a hamster in a cage running on a wheel that goes nowhere but his home is filled with love from his parents and sister, but he wants more. He is more aware than most, but he is destined to continue living the life he is with no end in sight.

Pierre’s future is mapped out for him, he is to take his father’s place as Chancellor but all he can think about is Lachlan and being with him. The movie the Matrix is mentioned a few times, but I didn’t understand the movie at all so thankfully this book cleared it up for me.

This is a new version of Sleeping Beauty and one that is scary as hell. We are constantly abusing our planet and hopefully this is not a peek at our future, although I don’t have that much faith in our government or scientists to come up with such an elaborate way to save us.

Although the people in suspended animation were cared for and ignorant of what is really going on it broke my heart to see the love Lachlan and Pierre had for each other with no chance of a future or did they?