Sunday, May 2, 2021
Sunday's Short Stack: So Far Away by Nell Iris
Title: So Far Away
Author: Nell Iris
Genre: M/M Romance
Release Date: May 1, 2021
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs
Publisher: JMS Books
So Close, Yet so Far Away
Engaged couple Zakarias and Julian are convinced nothing can separate them…until a global pandemic hits. Zakarias catches the virus with mild symptoms and isolates in the couple’s guest house. The few meters dividing them might as well be the moon as he watches Julian, an ICU nurse, work himself to the bone, unable to support him the way he needs. Frustration and worry build as the weeks pass. Will Zakarias be declared healthy before Julian burns out?
To start off, there is no mention of Covid19 in this story though I'm sure you can tell that the global virus the author describes is inspired by Covid and possibly even the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreaks. I know for some it might be too soon, too close to home, too triggering. I don't want to tell you to read it if you think it'll spark anxiety but So Far Away isn't so much about the virus but the human heart, the emotions that can and have hit most of us. For me, it was worth the risk and I am so glad I took that leap of faith that goes along with authors you love.
So Far Away looks at the relationship between Julian and Zakarias, fiancees who are so far apart despite only yards away. Nell Iris has created a story that shows the strength of true love, the sheer determination to keep going despite having your nerves completely frayed, fried, and teetering on the cliff of "How long can I keep going?". I'm not going to say this is the best short story I've read but I think it's the most poignant, the most emotion-filled short I've read in a very long time. Now don't get me wrong, despite the depth of heart, both breaking and warming, there is still a lot of fun in this story. Most of that comes in Zakarias' sister but also in Zak's determination to lift Julian's spirits and calm his mind even if it's through Skype.
For the past year I've been wanting to read a story set during or just after the 1918 epidemic in the LGBT genre and even though So Far Away is a contemporary setting, it quenched that thirst a bit for me because it is such a brilliant journey of the human heart. If it is too soon, too current, too anxiety-inducing to read now, which I can completely understand, I highly recommend putting it on your TBR List for the future, even a couple of years from now, you won't regret it.
RATING:
When we’d just bought it, we spent many long evenings making plans and discussing options. We’d share a bottle of wine and make long lists of things we wanted, things we deemed necessary in what was going to be our forever home. The lists started outrageously—a wine cellar bigger than the actual house with an employee who turns the bottles? Really, Zakarias?—but distilled into a few reasonable items. So Julian’s dream of the biggest bathroom in the northern hemisphere—a Bath Palace, Zakarias, not a bathroom—complete with a pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna, and every other imaginable luxury, turned into a more feasible sized room with a fancy walk-in shower and a separate bathtub with jets—both of them big enough to accommodate the two of us. It also has a heated floor and double sinks. And my favorite feature; the tiny lights over the bathtub, sprinkled in the ceiling like a starry sky.
We both love the house; it’s our sanctuary. Every design element is chosen for comfort and to make it feel like a real home. Like someplace we can be ourselves. Someplace we can grow old together.
But this house…it’s not just a house, it’s a home. Our home and I miss it.
I miss coming home from work and finding Julian sprawled on the couch in only his underwear, watching some horrid reality show or other on the big screen TV. I miss waking up early on weekends and preparing luxury breakfasts for him, miss how the scent of freshly baked bread never fails to wake him and lure him out of bed. I miss the adorable sight of him stumbling into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair in disarray with pillow creases on his cheek and dried drool on his chin. I miss how he beelines for me like a heat-seeking missile and winds himself around me, burying his face in my neck, snaking his arms around me, and tapping three times over my heart.
His family came up with that code when he was little; his younger sister was born with a genetic developmental disorder and never learned to speak, so three taps to the heart meant “I love you.” She died when she was only five, but the family keeps her memory alive with that gesture. It was how Julian told me he loved me for the first time. I didn’t understand it at the time, but when he told me the story, I realized he’d been telling me he loved me long before the words were spoken out loud.
I straighten my spine. Shake my head at my moment of weakness before marching back to the guesthouse and pulling a sweater over my head. I pour out the cold forgotten contents of my mug and pour fresh, steaming coffee into it.
Then I sit, take a sip, and breathe.
Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bona fide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies’ room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)
Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.
Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.
Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.
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EMAIL: contact@nelliris.com
Release Blitz: Burn that Bridge by JR Gray
Title: Burn that Bridge
Author: JR Gray
Genre: LGBT, Trans Romance, Coming Out
Release Date: April 29, 2021
Turns out trading a spot on the cheerleading squad for a fresh fade and all-new pronouns was more of a recipe for disaster than happiness. Coming out as trans in rural Alabama, where football rules and cheer is life, might have been the worst way to start my senior year.
There are no safety nets for people like me in places like this.
But sometimes, hope shows itself in the most unexpected places. New friends help us survive —and maybe— thrive. But falling for Sebastian was not part of the plan.
Embracing my identity put my happiness at odds with my safety. I’m terrified. Terrified to be me. Terrified to be happy. Terrified to love him.
Welcome to senior year.
Try to make it out alive.
There was a light to this boy I’d never experienced before. His soul was brightness. I envied him. I wanted to comb my fingers through him and feel like he felt if only for an instant.
He drummed on his thigh, lost in his Fall Out Boy, which was such a strange band for him to be into. They were like thirty-five, but he owned it. He’d put all their albums on shuffle. Some stuff I knew, and others were made before I was old enough to care about music, and his dedication showed. He started to belt out every song in a slightly off-key tune that endeared him in my heart.
“How many people see this side of you?”
He looked over at me, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Just Emery, and now you.” He shrugged it off like it wasn’t that big a deal, but in the world I’d fallen from, it was. “My group of friends doesn’t care about cool.”
“Everyone cares in the group I was in.”
“It shows.”
I couldn’t make eye contact. “You mean since none of them will talk to me anymore?”
“It’s more than that.”
“Is it?”
I turned back towards him, waiting for an explanation.
“You changed the outside and a name. And you didn’t really change it that much. You decided to go by your initials. If that’s all it takes to scare people off, they are the problem.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I think it is. You were…” He trailed off.
“I was?” I prompted.
“I was lying to them. I deceived every single person for the last year.” This was so much heavier than I wanted the night to be. I didn’t want everything to be colored by my transition. I wanted to be as light as Sebastian felt.
“I think we all have parts of us we aren’t ready to share with the rest of the world. That doesn’t make you a liar.” He rolled to his side to face me.
“This isn’t a little thing.”
“I think you’re making excuses for shitty behavior.”
I couldn’t look at him again, but I could feel his eyes, unwavering. “They don’t know any better.”
“It’s time to learn.” He skimmed his fingers over my forearm, and there were real damn sparks in the wake of his touch.
I put my hand over the place he’d been like I could hold the feeling there, preserve it in some way.
He was my rainbow. A prism projecting color into this dreary existence. The little bit of light shining through the rain, and maybe that was all I needed to go on.
Gray is a cynical Chicago native, who drinks coffee all day, barely sleeps, and is a little too fashion obsessed. He writes realistic and damaged characters because everyone deserves a happily ever after.
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