Title: Thunder Snow
Author: Owen Keehnen
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella (15K words)
Publisher: Wilde City Press (October 29th 2014)
Heat Level: Mild
Blurb: Thunder Snow is a gay love story set in academia during the 1980s. When Jim Franklin goes away to Windsor College, he is hoping to leave his former life, and lifestyle, behind. Jim has had enough of feeling like an outsider. By all practical purposes, he is succeeding at Windsor, at least until his third year. Jim has joined a fraternity and is dating a nice sorority girl.
Love blindsides him when Jim meets Glenn who has relocated to the town of Windsor from New York City. Glenn has come to town as the kept lover of wealthy Windsor resident Raymond Channing. Bored by the lack of stimulation in small town, Glenn soon enrolls in college at the university and meets Jim in a Romantic Literature class. When Jim asks for assistance with an assignment, Glenn agrees.
Sparks soon ignite and passion ensues. Despite their respective situations, both men fall madly in love, but will it be enough to sustain them in the long run.
ISBN: 978-1-925180-58-9
Product Link: http://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-romance/thunder-snow/#.VGqQLPnF9GQ
Tams Review: ♥♥ Hearts
Jim has always felt at odds with his own feelings, refusing to admit he could possibly be attracted to other men. He’s had a string of girlfriends, but nothing ever connected, especially sexually. Then he and Glenn are assigned to work together in a class they share and soon those feelings that Jim has tried so hard to bury, begin to surface. Glenn is a romantic at heart, at least that is the way he talks. In actuality, he is just a few shakes shy of a rent boy who lives off of his sugar daddy. When he and Jim meet, sparks fly but Jim is hesitant.
Eventually, Jim can no longer hide his feelings, even from himself and the two spend a romantic week together snowed in and sharing more of themselves with each other than either of them have ever shared with anyone else. Reality sets in when Raymond, sugar daddy, returns home. Will Glenn give up the cushy life style of a kept man for love? Or will Jim find himself exactly where he thought he would be where he ever to act on his feelings, alone.
I wanted to like this story so much more than I did. The concept was crafty, but the execution needed more glue. What was billed as a romantic gay for you story left me cold in the end. The romance between Jim and Glenn felt forced, the storyline was too clinical, and the ending really left a sour taste in my mouth. It was kind of depressing, for me at least. Sorry, I can’t recommend this one, but to each his own, right?
Zane’s Review: ♥♥♥2.5 Hearts
Though this tale takes place in the 1980’s, the direct manner of storytelling is not unlike the Romantic Literature the two MCs are reading in their class. Unfortunately, we are not in those olden days, and I need more than just curt narrative in my love stories. There was a lack of dialogue and romance, missing emotion. I read about them falling in love, but I didn’t FEEL it until it exploded in a dramatic scene that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Thunder Snow is a short read with a distinctive and unembellished writing style. What you get is what you see. This is a straightforward story of what happens when two people living life unfulfilled find truth and love in each other, and decide to run with it. There is an honesty here that many books lack, and a directness that was at times refreshing and other times uncomfortable. The story seems to give the message that love may conquer the moment, but reality wins out in the end.
If you’re looking for a short story with smiles and good feels and a hearts and flowers ending, this is not the book for you. Furthermore, I would be remiss if I didn’t give warning of two potential red flags (not for me, but for many MM romance readers); there is cheating, and there is no HEA. However, if you want a direct honest approach at a love story with realism, and don’t mind the fact that life gets in the way of love, give this one a go.