TBR Challenge: ‘WAITING FOR THE FLOOD', by Alexis Hall

The topic of this month is We Love Short Shorts! (shorter reads)

 

Riptide Publishing, 9/12/2015

Published: 2015

Genre: contemporary M/M

My Rating: 3 stars

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

Yes, this year I’m going to do the TBR Challenge, again. And we start, as per usual, with short stories in January. So I looked for the shortest thing in my kindle. And there it was, Waiting for the Flood, a short story written by Alexis Hall, a new-to-me-author.

It was in my TBR pile because I wanted to read something about this author. He has got wonderful reviews. This was an e-book cheaper than his most beloved books, Pansies (7,99 € = 9,78 $) and For Real (8,04 € = 9,85 $). Too expensive for a writer that I do not know if I’m going to like.

Short stories are a good way to give this authors a try.

The plot is rather simple. Twelve years ago, Edwin Tully came to Oxford and fell in love with a boy named Marius. They were together for ten years, up until the moment that Marius found out he was out of love with Edwin.

Edwin lives alone in what used to be their home. He works repairing old books, and is especially interested in ephemera, little documents from the past that were not intended to last but that give you a glimpse of daily life from the past. It’s a wonderful source for historians.

He likes his quiet life, and hasn’t tried to find another boyfriend, as it looks like he is not over Marius yet.

Then it starts raining, and there’s the risk of a flood in Oxford. That’s why Adam Acre, from the Environment Agency, appears in his life. Adam is wonderful, gay, charming, powerful, and it looks like he is interested in Edwin.

But Edwin is not sure. He tends to stammer, he’s not exactly shy, but likes to keep inside himself because not everybody wants to give him the time he needs to talk about anything.

This story is told in first person narrative, from Edwin’s point of view. This kind of narrative is a little bit tricky. I don’t usually like it. It’s been said that it is like being in somebody else’s mind. Or, as Lisa Kleypas said when she presented Sugar Daddy, it’s like having a friend of yours in your kitchen telling you her story (I remember she said that in a message in RT Book Reviews, but now it has disappeared).

The thing is that living in another person’s mind or hearing a story from your friend it’s as interesting as the person telling the story.

And that’s my problem, I was not really interested in Edwin. He wasn’t funny, or charming or particularly clever. Just another person like you or me, and that’s not bad but it does not recommend a book to you, either.

Adam, on the other hand, was a hero I could really swoon about. He is somebody you can rely on. Tall and strong, he likes what he sees and goes for it. He is quite nice and lovable.

I think I would have loved this story better if it wasn’t in first person narrative, looking at Edwin from the outside and not from the inside.

So, I loved one of the heroes, reliable Adam. I was not very interested in the other one, Edwin.

But apart from that I really enjoyed the setting, the environment, how wonderfully Oxford is portrayed, so real and you can imagine yourself there, in that quite grey town. And that is what gave this story its main attraction for me.

For me, this book should be ‘Adam and the Flood’. That was my experience.

On the whole, did I like Alexis Hall writing? Yes, certainly. So I will read his other books in the future. 

But when the price is a little bit lower.