The Valde: Water by Astrid Amara
Charlie and Joel were not exactly a perfect couple, truth be told they are at the opposite; they always fought, they didn't like the same things, they had different expectation in life, but for some strange alchemy, they were perfect together. Probably the stronger glue was sex, that was always terrific between them; when they couldn't agree on something, they always found a common path in the bedroom. Joel was a college professor, a bookish type, Charlie was an engineering and a jock, and they difference in body and life were respected in the bedroom, where Joel was happy to leave the lead to Charlie and to enjoy his dominant behavior. Also since he knew a different Charlie, a man who loved romantic comedy and that believed in love at first sight.
And so they were perfect, but on Joel's 29th birthday, only 10 months after they met, Charlie died at sea, drowned while he was trying to safe Joel, and Joel, after a year, is still mourning his lost lover. To the reader it seems almost impossible that a man is so devastated after the loss of who you can hardly define the love of your life, a man who was only 10 months in the life of Joel, and if not for the paranormal turn, probably I would have considered Joel a bit too weak and silently told him to get a grip on his life and move one. And instead while Joel is trying to drown in the alcohol his pain, he sees a man who is exactly like Charlie, worst he is Charlie, since he has all the physical sign that were only of his lover. But this man has something completely different than Charlie, a ruthlessness in his eyes that Charlie never had, and Joel sees him killing with bare hand a woman. Now Joel is on the run from the man that he believed to love, and who said to love him back.
This is only a novella, but despite being short, I didn't find it rushed. I read it like the opening book in a longer series, and so it should give to readers all the details to build the setting and be prepared for the rest. An hard task in less than 100 pages, and probably in more unskilled hand, the love story would have lost space to the setting. And instead the relationship between Charlie and Joel is complete, it has not only a present, but also enough details to build a past, to give the reader the feeling of intimacy between Charlie and Joel, of their past common memories. A love story, a so small thing in comparison to the safety of the world, is able to distract the reader from what it's happening outside and almost forces him to concentrate in those little details, on the likes or dislikes of the man who was Charlie, on the regret of Joel to abandon his ordinary life, made of college lessons and family trouble. But in the end these are the real thing, and the paranormal plot that is happening outside, it's so distant, that it becomes ordinary and simple.
It will be interesting to see if in the following book, the paranormal subplot will take center stage in the story, and if it will be again a story between Charlie and Joel, since I don't believe that it's ended between them.
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Amazon Kindle: The Valde: Water
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Cover Art by Christine M. Griffin