Kale’s Spirit

Title: Kale’s Spirit (Fork in the Road 1)
Author: Jackie Nacht
Cover Artist: Martine Jardin
Publisher: Extasy Books
Buy Link: Buy LinkAmazon:
Genre: contemporary, Young Adult, paranormal
Length: novella (80 pages)
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Larissa

Review Summary: a surprisingly thoughtful and sweet story about coming out, first love and growing up with a paranormal element mixed in and a very surprising – interactive – ending.

 

Blurb: When Kale comes to a fork in the road, who will you choose for his happily ever after?

Kale has just a few more weeks of school and can’t wait to graduate and get on with his life. At home, he has amazing supportive parents but at school, he has habitual run-ins with the popular kids, who want to make everyone’s life miserable. After catching the group in the woods doing drugs, Kale has an encounter fighting for his life.

The road to recovery is long and Kale has help from his rescuers, Hunt and Volk. Hunt is the strong, takes everyone under his wing kind of guy, while Volk is the sweet, caring guy. Kale finds himself falling for both of them.

Who do you choose for Kale to have his happily ever after?

Review: I’m going to warn you up front that Kale’s Spirit might not be for everyone. Not because of the story – while not an intricate story with many layers, it was a charming and sweet story – but because of the ending – or rather endings. More on that later.

I picked Kale’s Spirit up because it was primarily a LGBTQ Young Adult story and we don’t have too many of those. I went in blank and wasn’t disappointed. Kale is a strong character – and I mean that literally and figuratively.

Kale is definitely gay, but he has kept that tidbit to himself while trying to navigate high school. He’s not doing too badly, except for a typical group of bullies. He doesn’t let it get him down too much, but one day everything changes.

On his way home, Kale takes a shortcut through the woods, but instead of losing his bullies, he runs into them instead. They lay into him, but Kale is rescued by Hunt and Volk and their friends and a white wolf pup. Then everything goes black.

The story really starts from there. Kale becomes fast friends with Hunt and Volk and their friends. They are all outcasts, thrown out because they are gay or have ran away. Still, there is something more, something Kale can’t quite put his hand on, and then there are Hunt and Volk themselves. Both very sweet, but also very different and both have turned their eyes on Kale. Who is he going to pick?

The writing is nicely done. Jackie Nacht is, from what I gather, a new author and while the writing isn’t professional, it is done well. The author sure drew me right into the story and kept me there. I became entranced in Kale’s life and his choices and his friends.

The plot isn’t too layered or intricate; it focuses on Kale’s coming out and his life following the attack as he gets closer to Hunt and Volk. It’s interesting to see his dilemma. Hunt and Volk are both good friends and both potential love interests. It’s clear he likes them both and they like him back. For a while I hoped for a ménage, but it wasn’t in the books.

Hunt is strong and protective. In my opinion he stands closer to Kale as they complete each other nicely. Hunt needs someone to protect and love and while Kale is by no means weak, he does challenge Hunt as well.

Volk on the hand is more Kale’s equal, though he is more sensitive. He was one sweet character that I just wanted to wrap up and put in my pocket.

For the most part Kale’s Spirit is focuses on the triangle between Kale, Hunt and Volk and their friendship. There are no nasty confrontations, discussions or sneaky meet-ups. The whole romance is amicably, something I liked. There is no explicit sex of course, but there is off screen. A good thing, because we all know boys are no saints at that age, but they are ‘mature’ about it.

Woven through that is Kale coming to terms with the attack that put him in the hospital and his coming out and the effects of that. An important part of the story was the slight paranormal element between the kids and the wolves. It’s was a very refreshing and original plot point. And no, not going to share what is. For that you need to pick up the book yourself 😉 Let’s just say it’s worth it without giving the story away entirely.

As I said in the introduction, this story is not for everyone and that is because of the ending. To me it was something new and not seen before in published books. It sure wasn’t something I was expecting.

Because it’s a major spoiler for readers who like their books to be a surprised, the following is labeled as a great big spoiler. If you don’t want to know, please don’t click the following spoiler:

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The ending is split up in two. There are literally two endings. One where Kale ends up with Hunt and one where he ends up with Volk.

For my part, I’ve never seen this type of ending before, but I heard it has been done a time or two in fan fiction. It takes interactive reading to a new level. While on the one hand I liked it as it leaves out the disappointment of the character not ending up with the love interest you were rooting for, I also really don’t like to choose, that is the author’s department 😉

It’s also troublesome if it concerns a series. How is it going to be continued if there are two endings. That would mean two series, unless the next book in the series focusses on an entirely new set of characters.

In any case it was interesting. It didn’t really bother me, but I can guess there will be readers who are bothered by it. Can you guess who I chose?

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Despite the surprise of the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed Kale’s Spirit. The characters even behaved as 18-year olds, although maybe they were a bit more mature than most. It was an enjoyable and entertaining read and I can definitely recommend it.