Spark
By Posy Roberts
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Women’s lit meets gay romance in this tepid tale of two high school lovers, one who acknowledges his true nature and the other in the closet because of an overbearing father. Since this is ground many other gay romances have trampled, Roberts makes one character a drag performer who hides this side of himself from his lovers. But even that tidbit can’t pull this story out of the mediocre.

Hugo Thorson and Kevin Magnus explore their sexuality in secret during their junior and senior years of high school. Because his father is so strict, Kevin also has a public girlfriend on the side, much to Hugo’s disappointment. When they head off to different colleges, they swear they’ll stay in touch, but don’t, drifting apart as many high school friends do.

Now Hugo’s a successful actor and director who with a friend is part of a drag act that performs in clubs and at festivals. When Hugo’s best friend Summer is dumped by her fiance, Hugo agrees to go to a cabin on Minnesota’s Green Lake to help Summer get over her heartache.

There Hugo runs into Kevin again. In the intervening nineteen years, Kevin’s gotten married, sired two children, and is in the middle of getting a divorce. True to romance tropes, Hugo and Kevin again fall madly in love, but Hugo doesn’t tell Kevin about Miss Cherry Pie, his drag alter ego.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that Kevin and Cherry will meet up one day, and this, and not Kevin’s children or former wife, will become the deciding factor in whether Hugo and Kevin find their happily ever after.

Both Hugo and Kevin are fairly stereotypical gay romance characters: Hugo embraces his gayness while Kevin works his hardest to hide it. Both have typical parent problems: Hugo’s father is dying of cancer while Kevin’s is trying to micromanage his spineless son’s life.

Even Hugo’s and Kevin’s friends and family aren’t very exciting. Kevin has a couple of precocious kids who do the darndest things. And Hugo has a supportive sister and heartbroken best friend, both of whom support anything and everything Hugo does.

Unfortunately, the only thing that really sets this novel apart from other gay romances is the addition of dialogue and scenes that are taken from the pages of women’s lit. At one point Hugo and Kevin go walking on a nice day, but find their attraction getting the best of them. They decide to hurry home to fall into bed and have sex.

So far so good. But what follows isn’t so good. They stop to pet a woman’s dog and get into a long discussion about what kind of dog it is and whether it would be suitable for a family with kids. After this digression, they hurry home again, remembering that they were on their way to have sex.

Kevin steps into the bathroom once they get to Hugo’s apartment. So Hugo figures this is a good time to pay some bills. What?! Pay bills?! When Kevin steps out of the bathroom, he can’t believe that Hugo is paying his bills by writing paper checks, so he explains electronic banking and they set up electronic withdrawals for Hugo’s monthly bills. By this time I was laughing so hard, tears were running down my cheeks.

Kevin and Hugo finally get to the bedroom, but by this time, I’d totally given up on them as a couple in love. These kinds of digressions might work in women’s lit, but they don’t usually appear when the characters are passionate and are in a hurry to act on their passion. Or at least they shouldn’t.

So while Kevin and Hugo professed to feeling a spark, the only sparks I felt were mild annoyance and humor, not what most romance writers are looking for.

Reviewed by Pat Henshaw

Grade: C-

Book Type: Queer Romance

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date: 23/11/13

Publication Date: 2013/09

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Recent Comments …

  3. excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.

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