Because It's True by Willa Okati
As usual Willa Okati’s stories are a mix of romance and magick, and Because It’s True is not different. Ford is a man who believes in magick, in good omens and signs. A mix of finnish, irish and chinese heritage, he is a man with the body of a bear and the soul of a fairy (no pun intended). While speaking with a new friend, he is challenged to read his own fortune and all the signs are saying that he will meet the man he will marry; when the elevator opens and Gavin is the man in front of him, Ford is lost: Gavin is small, fragile and beautiful. He is also scared, not by Ford on a physical way, but from the strength of Ford’s feelings. Already once in the past Gavin has been stormed away by a crazy man and the end was not an happily ever after.
With all his passion, and with an old fashioned courtship, Ford manages to convince Gavin to give him a chance. It’s a crazy idea, it’s completely against Gavin’s tentatives to shelter his heart from further damage, but Ford is a force of nature. The nice thing is that Ford doesn’t use his strength to convince Gavin, and not even the physical desire, it’s more a play of doing little things and be always there for Gavin. Ford’s strength is in the little things, in the details he read as good or bad omens, in the things people usually underestimate since are too small to get notice. I think there is a parallelism on being Ford so big and his conviction that the true is in the small things: Ford is really self-conscious of his clumsy body (almost 7 feet tall he has indead a scaring exterior) and in the aim to protect who is smaller, he is more aware than other of how much fragile people and things can be.
I was already good with the story like that, a nice guy meets guy, guy gets guy story, but Willa Okati decided to give us even more; what if the all-together good guy Ford suddenly is making a mistake? What if, after spending days and days convincing Gavin that he is the right one, that he has to trust him, that he loves him, and when Gavin asks why, the simple answer is, Because It’s True, what if suddenly Ford changes his mind? Will Gavin read it as the final betrayal, will he close himself in his shell without letting anyone reach for him? There is another nice parallel at this point between Gavin and his “pet”, a F1 cross, a mix between a domestic and a wild feline: Ford is trying to conquer both of them, and I think that if he conquers one the second will soon follow; but as Oscar, the F1 cross, also Gavin is skettish, and they tend to react hiding himself when in danger.
The sex is good, not so much kinky as it could have been due to Gavin and Ford’s body differences, but in a way it was better, since this novel targets more the romance than the sex.
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Amazon Kindle: Because It's True
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Cover Art by P.L. Nunn