"Hammer and Air" by Amy Lane
Title: Hammer and Air
Author: Amy Lane
Genre: romance, fantasy, magic, best friends
Length: 194 pages/Novel
Summary: There will always be a Hammer and an Air...
Graeme and Eirn have no words for what they are to each other. Children, clinging together in a crowded orphanage; friends, battling back to back in a school yard; and bedmates, finally bridging the gap between sleeping next to a body and allowing it to touch you in the night-all of these roles are summed up by just their names: Hammer and Air.
The innocent exploration of their newest roles is brutally marred when a violent, ill-tempered master threatens Eirn, and Eirn's "Hammer" kills the man in a fair fight. The two run off into the wide world with only each other for safety. It's difficult to forge a good life with only a blacksmith's hammer and a printer's cleverness, but together, Hammer and Eirn will learn to negotiate the dangers of magic and motion, of sex, obsession, and tenderness, and of the word that can make sense of it all-one word they must earn for themselves.
My Review: This is the love story of all love stories. It has everything we know and love from fairy tales and Disney movies, except the gay leads! lol On a more seriously note, Amy Lane does an amazing job of gently drawing readers into the magical word that Hammer and Eirn find themselves in. She allows us to have a perch on the windowsill of their cottage and see as they, along with their grows and deepens in the sweetest way, as this is as much a coming-of-age story as a love story. I can't get over how absolutely endearing this story and the love Hammer and Air had for one another is so pure and innocent. This a light-hearted read with limited amounts of angst. I mean, there are no cheating spouses or terminal illnesses here. It's a definite must read.