Hi there! Today I’m sharing a Throwback Thursday review for a M/M contemporary romance from Valentine Wheeler. CHECKED BAGGAGE is a Thanksgiving-based novella that features two men on separate personal missions unexpectedly meeting someone they can connect with.
About the book:
When Faris has to take a trip back to his family’s home in Lebanon to handle his grandmother’s estate, he finds himself caught between the world he left as a child and the world he’s built himself in the United States. After an exhausting stay with his boisterous extended family, all he wants is a quiet trip home before Thanksgiving with his parents in Massachusetts. But the weather has different plans for him.
Charlie’s father left when he was a toddler, and he’s never gotten the chance to connect with his paternal roots. A trip to the village his family left in the 1930s gave him the facts, but left him yearning for a history he still didn’t feel.
When both men are stuck in Beirut for the night unexpectedly, can they find the connection they’re missing and make it home by Thanksgiving?
My Review:
Faris is a Lebonese man doing his family duty to travel back to the homeland in the wake of his grandmother’s death. She had passed away a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and Faris’ parents are unable to travel back to manage her estate. He’s just finished all of these tasks and is at the Beirut airport to fly back to Boston, for Thanksgiving with his family, when his flights are cancelled. He’s stranded and unwilling to contact his relations for another night’s stay–they’re crowded into their homes and he’s all peopled out. While waiting to re-book for the next day, he meets Charlie, a sexy American whose flight is also cancelled.
They think they get reservations for rooms at a nearby hotel, and share a cab there, but it turns out the rooms were all booked up, and only one remains. So, Faris, with his better Arabic, makes a deal to book it–and offers Charlie the room to share. There’s only one queen bed, but as the night wears on these men share a lot of truth, developing camaraderie. Faris is bisexual, having had relationships with men, women and non-binary people back in Boston. He’s certainly attracted to Charlie, but believes he’s straight. Charlie offers to sleep on the floor, and while Faris starts out with this idea he eventually caves to offer Charlie half the queen bed.
Their intimacy deepens as the night wears on. And it leads to some sexytimes. The next morning is awkward–made worse when Faris calls for a clean break. Faris kicks himself over and over for his shortsightedness, and wishes he could have kept contact with Charlie, but a lucky break reuinites them, just in time for turkey dinner. It’s short and bittersweet, with a fun and charming ending. I liked how Faris was a bit of curmudgeon, and he had several changes of heart in the course of about two days. In the end, it’s super sweet and happy with Charlie bringing much needed lightness into Faris’ sheltered world.
Interested? You can find CHECKED BAGGAGE on Goodreads, NineStar Press, and Amazon.
About the Author:
Valentine (she/her) lives in Boston, where she goes by Lis and spends her time citing obscure postal regulations and arguing with a preschooler. She writes queer joy, often with a speculative twist, and always full of bisexuals.
She serves as Logistics and Fiction Editor for Wizards in Space Literary Magazine, and her work can be found at The Future Fire and Ninestar Press
V's Reads... 