Title:The Man Who Liked Wintergreen
Author: Lucius Parhelion
Publisher: Torquere Books
Amazon: Buy Link The Man Who Liked Wintergreen
Genre: Historical M/M Romance
Length: 51 pages/12000 words
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
A guest review by Sirius
Summary: I liked this historical novelette set in the Los Angeles of 1935, but I wished for more showing of the buildup of the romance between the characters.
Blurb:
It’s 1935 in a Los Angeles that’s both booming and sleazy. Mike Warren is a slick shyster, a homosexual who makes a good living selling legal services to those no one else will defend. The Reverend Johnny Breuer is a clergyman who reconciled with his own homosexuality by giving up his congregation to serve others through charity and political reform.
After Johnny saves Mike from a murderous thug, he collects his payment by making Mike help him rescue a settlement house from the prominent attorney Johnny suspects is robbing the settlement’s charitable trust blind. As the two men untangle this web of corruption, they grow increasingly close, finding that good-natured worldliness and worldly good-heartedness are not as opposed as they once both believed. Now they only have to survive a late-night visitor to Mike’s beach house, and the shady trouble following in his wake, to learn if their lust is actually as clean and strong as wintergreen.
Review:
I think it is a pretty safe bet that I am hooked on this author’s writing. Since my previous review of The Retrieval by this writer, I think I have read all the stories that he/she published, but now I looked at Torquere again and realized that I missed couple of anthologies, which I am going to correct very soon. 🙂 I can see now that most of his/her work is set in the first quarter/half of the twentieth century, so I can be a little less at awe, but still very grateful that all the stories feel so well researched and believable. Not that it shows any less work, but at least he/she does not jump around the centuries, which I think is a very smart choice. Parhelion’s characters certainly seem distinct and interesting, and even if settings of the stories are close in time, they are different enough to keep my interest.
Having said all this, I am a little less in love with this particular story than with the majority of this writer’s work. Do not get me wrong, I liked it quite a lot and it has all the trademarks which I have come to associate with Parhelion’s writing. It often feels as if you are in the noir style movie and all the visuals just keep popping in your head, and it has two strong, distinct, likeable, but flawed characters, and their flaws are just as believable when sketched in several sentences as if the author had spent pages and pages doing it.
Parhelion also manages to give this short story/novelette an interesting plot; the characters are actually doing stuff and they get to know each other and supposedly fall in love while doing these things together. Here where I had sort of an issue with this story. I did not quite believe the “falling in love” part. I felt that it was a bit too rushed, and of course other readers may have had completely different reaction from what I had. I think that part of the problem for me was that contrary to many other stories by this author, the characters meet for the first time face to face in the beginning of the story and by the end of the story they are in love. Of course it was done much more skillfully than clumsy Insta!love of many stories in this genre, especially considering the fact that it definitely was not Insta!love or any sort of love after their first meeting, but I felt that in parts there was a bit too much telling and not enough showing of how their attraction slowly grows. Here is for me the example of some uneasiness that I had:
Mike had enjoyed the time he’d spent with Johnny much more than he had expected, given that their outings had begun as cover for both Cranthorpe House investigation and their sexual involvement. He had learned that they got along well, sharing some hobbies and getting each other’s jokes. Johnny was always interested in a debate and heard a lot of the good rumors Mike missed, since a reverend frequently knew different characters in the same neighborhoods. And sex with someone Mike was learning to trust was proving to be as soothing as smoking, or winning a trial, or wintergreen.
I would have liked to see more of all this instead of being told. Of course maybe the more I read stories by this writer, the more I am getting used to the works which, to me, are pretty close to being perfect and maybe I am starting to see problems where there is none? I don’t know, but this is how I felt after I was done with this one.
Recommended despite any problems I may have had.
This is exactly what I felt and the passage you quote is perfect to illustrate it.
I really wish the writer would go for the novel and leave the shorter work alone for a while. It feels to me like he/she needs more of a challenge again.
Still anything by this writer is a pleasure. Working through the back catalogue, I really enjoyed The Emperor.
Great review.
I did enjoy the Emperor myself, but I so agree with you, can we have a novel, pretty please? 🙂
this sounds like an interesting story, glad you reviewed it. I always like finding new authors. I’m not sure but I think I’ll try reading “The Retrieval” first 😀
Rdafan, I definitely suggest trying The retrieval first and see whether you will like it. I could not stop :). I mean, I have read Faster than the speed of light before The retrieval, but after I finished with it, I pretty much bought this writer’s backlist. Let me know your thoughts 🙂
I have to agree with you – I loved The Retrieval. I loved Faster than the Speed of Light. This one was good, but not my favorite by this author. For reasons I can’t explain all that well, the protagonists kept reminding me of Justice and Loic in Dallas Coleman’s Black Mustard: Justice (another Torquere short that I completely adore), but the relationship here felt incomplete.
Thats it Pea, relationship felt incomplete is exactly how I felt and I have to check out this short now, we seem to agree on quite a lot of books :). Thank you.
Now I’m worried you may not find Black Mustard well-developed, either! There aren’t a lot of pages devoted to showing why/how the characters fell in love in that story either, but I think the author does a nice job of demonstrating their growing intimacy through rather basic, quotidian interactions and verbal sparring. The chemistry between the two is quite nice – although I still find “Loic” to be kind of an odd name choice.
I liked it a lot Pea, thank you. Accent in the beginning was a little bit distracting to read (only for me as esl speaker, I was finishing up words in my head), but I got used to it. I did not think their love was sudden at all, as you said chemistry is shown through their interactions, instead of author *telling* me about their interactions. I enjoyed how author did it quite a lot, actually. There was no Huh from me when they finally made love. Loic, um yeah, reminded me of Frolic from Boots for the Gentleman (not character resemblance thank goodness, just name resemblance)
Well, that’s a relief – glad you liked it. I must admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for men who call others “cher”.
I love Parhelion’s stories, but I’m often left wanting more … they ARE too short! I also think the reader has to work a bit to figure out what’s going on. It’s as if Parhelion assumes I know more than I do.
I didn’t have the same issue you had with Mike and Johnny falling in love too quickly, because I think there was some backstory (i.e. more meetings) that we readers didn’t get to see. They seemed to hit it off really well right from the start. (But yes, I wouldn’t have complained if there had been a little more “upfront” action.)
Hi Gaycrow, I was pretty sure that that was their first meeting face to face, that they were aware of each other’s existence but never met before that time. I could definitely be wrong though.
Oh and just to clarify, I did not have an issue with them falling in love too quickly, at least several months passed before their initial meeting and their declaration. I had an issue with not “seeing” enough why they fell in love. I felt that author told me why they did, but not showed enough.
I love his/her works too and cant wait for the next one, hopefully for the longer one.
Thanks for commenting gaycrow.
Oh, sorry, misunderstandings all around!
Yes, I know they’ve just met for the first time in the beginning of the story. My comment about hidden backstory relates to the months passing that we don’t get to see. So yes, in that respect we’re definitely on the same wavelength. I would’ve liked to have seen that love developing, too. (I did think you weren’t happy with an insta-love situation, so I read your initial comments incorrectly.)
It seems we’re all agreeing to wanting more Parhelion stories! :hearts01:
Hi Gaycrow, oh sorry, no no, last thing I would have thought about this story is that it has an Insta!Love, I did not think it was that at all. Yes, we definitely agree on wanting more stories by this writer.
I definitely did Pea 🙂