Hi there! Today I’m sharing a review for a contemporary M/M holiday romance from Eve Morton. HOLIDAYS IN BLUE features a mature man coming to terms with his shattered origins and finding solace and love with the younger neighbor who’d long crushed on him.

About the book:
Sometimes it takes a little ice to discover a whole lot of heat.
Cosmin Tessler is going home for Christmas. Eric Campbell is too.
Neither expected a homecoming quite like this.

When Cosmin Tessler’s radio show is canceled and Eric Campbell’s acting jobs dry up, they find themselves unexpectedly back in their old Toronto neighborhood…and back in each other’s lives years after they’d gone their separate ways. With a series of failed relationships and one ill-advised marriage behind them, both believe their chance for love has come and gone.

Luck, in the form of a massive ice storm, throws the former neighbors together again and they find themselves stranded, alone, for Christmas. Despite their difference in age, long-ago crushes and undeniable attraction prove too much to resist. But when the ice melts, only time will tell if their burgeoning romance will become just another missed chance—or a love story whose time has finally come.

A Forced Proximity Christmas Romance

My Review:
Cosmin Tessler was a Romanian orphan adopted by a Canadian couple in the 1980s. His parents were lovely people, but his mother and younger adoptive sister were killed in a car wreck when he was in college. His father, who had been sometimes difficult to speak to. generally closed down and closed off, leaving Cosmin very much alone in the world. Cosmin thought it was because he came out as gay, and he stayed away as a result. For nearly two decades he and his father were estranged, and he’s now mourning the loss of his childhood relationship as his father has recently passed away. Cosmin’s an intellectual, with a doctorate in literature, and also hosts a radio show in Toronto called “Sleep Alone”. It’s two weeks before the end of the year and he’s just learned–at the station Christmas party–that his show has been losing market share and it’s not being renewed. While nursing his sorrows at the bar Cosmin notes the younger, attractive bartender, but passes on with the mission to make one final show happen–and do it as an homage to his and his sister’s humble adoptive roots.

Eric Campbell is an attractive bisexual man in his thirties. He can’t believe his luck at seeing his high school-age crush, Cosmin, at a gig bartending job in the city. He’d been floundering, living with a pal in the suburbs outside of Toronto, hoping to get voice acting jobs for audiobooks to make ends meet. He’d been an actor, but hasn’t been employed regularly in a long time. He makes some serendipitous connections in the coming days, including getting to his parents’ home just hours before an enormous ice storm covers the Toronto area, shutting down electricity and travel for several days leading up to Christmas. Eric notices that “Old Man Tessler’s” place is covered in ice, and ventures out to ask his elderly neighbor if he needs assistance, not knowing that his neighbor had died several weeks ago and the light he sees is Cosmin looking through his father’s effects, searching for answers about his, and his sister’s, adoptions.

These two men are the only people trapped in the cul de sac, and with the electric and heating issues that are being challenged by the storm, Eric elects to stay at Cosmin’s–and help him search out his history. The closeness and the inability to get anywhere else allows these two to comfort one another, and work together to achieve Cosmin’s goals, while connecting in a way they had never before. Eric does indeed reveal his crush, and they build an intimacy that is not just built on sexual need. Cosmin examines his life, and his father’s actions, through a new lens revealed in the collections of journals his father left behind. It’s a beautiful awakening, and prompts Cosmin to reach farther out for connection than he ever has before. Eric is there, willing to take his hand, and their few idyllic days seem to be a foundation for the future.

Once the ice melts, however, will these two find that their nights of passion were fleeting, or the beginning of something quite bigger.

This is a quiet love story with a lyrical and winding prose that very much caters to Cosmin’s intellectual personality. I enjoyed it, though the pace was slow, to my preferences. I adored both Eric and Cosmin, who are unique and complicated characters. The family dynamics are interesting as these men deal with the sea change in attitudes toward sexuality with even just less than a decade of years between them. Also, Cosmin’s assumptions about his father are a huge counterpoint to the reality he encounters reading his father’s personal journals. They create a new narrative through which he must see and judge himself, as well, learning of his true history for the first time and wishing he could have gone back and mended fences so many years ago. In his late 40’s, Cosmin is unwilling to let time pass him by, now that he’s connected with Eric. Their reunion is so sweet–and the rom-com flavor of it brought a lightness the book really needed. It’s a good one if you have patience to really dig deep into the lives and psyche of characters who need more than just the surface view.

Interested? You can find HOLIDAYS IN BLUE on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

About the Author:
Eve Morton is a writer living in Waterloo, Ontario. She grew up a forty-minute drive from Toronto, where she often spent her summers wandering down Queen Street West, going to concerts, or exploring the landscape of Rouge Hill, Toronto Island, and Exhibition Place. After graduating with a degree in English Literature and Women’s Studies, she floated from retail job to retail job before deciding that the classroom was the right place for her. While obtaining her advanced degrees in English Literature (with an emphasis on non-traditional representation and film), she met her husband. The two had both grown up a mere fifteen minutes from one another, yet had never met before, and soon found themselves easily falling in love as they explored the same place where they were both from with new eyes.

When she is not teaching online classes or working on yet another project, Eve is often reading a lot of books or listening to music from some of her favourite artists. She also loves to explore New Age shops in each city she visits whenever she travels, and continues to read tarot and astrology because it is so much fun. Eve also loves true crime, especially the forensic side of it, and is often swayed by a good podcast (especially if it’s funny). She continues to do academic research on LGBTQ communities, pulp and genre fiction, and film studies, along with other academic issues involving addiction, mental illness, and student representation.

Catch up with Eve on her website.

Thanks for popping in and keep reading my friends!