Title: The Best Gift
Author: Shawn Lane
Publisher: Amber Allure
Genre: Contemporary M/M
Length: Novella (75 pages)
Rating: 3.75 Stars out of 5
Summary Review: A very sweet, very short story about long time best friends finally confessing their love at Christmas.
THE BLURB:
Malcolm Rowland’s nearly year-old relationship ends just before Christmas when he learns his boyfriend has been cheating on him. Unfortunately, the breakup leaves Malcolm with no place to live and no job.
His best friend, Dustin Jones, who has stood by him for years, takes him in and is determined to show Malcolm not only a great Christmas, but that love between the two of them can be the best gift of all…
THE REVIEW:
Have you ever read a story that you knew was going to be a short novella, but still felt disappointed when it finished? The experience of reading The Best Gift is like that. Even though I enjoyed it, it really felt like the first few chapters of a much longer story, rather than a short story that was complete in itself.
We start in the POV of Malcolm, as he and his adorable best friend Dustin (Dusty for short) search for a parking space outside the restaurant where they are supposed to meet Malcolm’s boyfriend for lunch. Note: the boyfriend’s name is ‘Jordan Castillo’, which I assume is a nod to author Jordan Castillo Price. However, the Jordan in this story is not a talented M/M author but a macho police detective. It’s immediately evident that Jordan is a rather unpleasant character, not nearly good enough for the sweet and unassuming Malcolm. Unfortunately, Malcolm, who is a budding M/M novelist, has given up his job and lives with Jordan, who expects him to handle the housework, cooking and cleaning and is obviously very controlling of him. Alarm bells ring.
After a somewhat tense lunch, the characters go their separate ways and we switch to Dusty’s POV to learn that, unsurprisingly, he’s been in love with Malcolm for years and pretty much everyone knows it apart from Malcolm. Dusty is horrified when Jordan walks into the restaurant where Dustin works as a waiter. Horrified because Jordan is with another man, and they are clearly more than friends. Before Dustin can really decide how to handle this, Malcolm walks into the restaurant to catch a late supper (since his boyfriend is ‘working late’) and realises that Jordan is cheating on him.
Despite being a mild-mannered sort, Malcolm is clear that he’s not going to put up with this, and immediately breaks up with Jordan – who reacts as expected with vileness and threats. Dustin gets between the two and when Jordan storms off, Dustin offers to help Malcolm move out of Jordan’s house and tells him that he can stay in Dustin’s apartment as long as he needs.
Back in Malcolm’s POV, we’re shown that Malcolm has loved Dustin since high school, and that only bad timing has kept them apart so far. Placed in the close proximity of Dustin’s one-bed apartment and with both of them feeling a little wrought up emotionally, the two soon spill out all their feelings to each other and a happy, Christmassy ending is had by all. Apart from Jordan, who doesn’t deserve one.
The writing in The Best Gift is solid and the characters are likeable and sympathetic. For me, though, I felt that I’d barely scratched the surface of Dustin or Malcolm, and so their story didn’t really move me. Of course I know that the author may have been restricted as to how many pages he was allowed, but I’ve read other novellas that had a similar word count and which did work as a complete story. I thought that this novella was more like an introduction to Dustin and Malcolm, despite what seemed to be an iron-clad HEA.
There’s a sequel to this story called Still the One, which I will be reviewing next week, and my hope is that we’ll get to delve a bit deeper into the character’s inner lives in that one. In the meantime, this story would be perfect for someone who likes short, sweet stories with minimal angst.
My only niggle with this story is that Dustin is sometimes referred to as Dusty and Dustin both within the same paragraph. I can understand the narrative using his full name and then a nick name in dialogue but sometimes I felt like “what name is he being referred to as?”. For some reason that really bugged me. Weird. LOL but it is a cute sweet story about friends to lovers. I haven’t read the second one yet.
Hmm, I noticed that too – in fact, I did the same thing in my review! I think it’s because sometimes in M/M you’re limited in how you can use ‘he’ and ‘him’. You have to keep repeating the characters names over and over to make it clear who is doing what. So giving one character a nick-name means you’ve got another option, to make it seem less repetitive.
This may be just the ticket when I’m in the mood for something short and sweet…
Very compelling review. I don’t mind that some things are left hanging if there’s a sequel.
Thank you. I’m definitely very glad I already *have* the follow-up. I did think that if I had bought and read this when it first came out, before the sequel was published, I’d have gotten a little frustrated.
I like Shawn Lane’s writing most of the time and I remember reading this book and wondering where the rest of the story was. This is the problem with these shorter formats which a lot of readers want because they can read them in between dinner and bedtime, but they are not long enough for character development or a reasonable plot. I hope that the sequel fills the gaps. 🙂
I liked this too. It might sound strange but it felt like a ‘friendly’ story. The characters were sweet, the story was nice. I just wished it had been longer!
Thanks for the read, Alexi.
Actually it is not a novella length story, at least not by Amber Allure’s standards or any that I know of. It is only 8,000 words and novellas at Amber Allure are 18,000. Quite a difference, 🙂
Anyway, the point was it was only meant to be a very short Christmas story at the time I wrote it and was not even supposed to have a sequel. Some readers asked for one though, so I wrote Still the One (which takes place 5 years later and is longer, but is still not novella length.)
Oh, and one more thing, the Jordan Castillo thing was not a nod to the author I am afraid. I’ve heard of her, but not read anything by her, and happened to use the name of someone I am personally acquainted with (I know a Dustin/Dusty, too). It wasn’t until after it was published someone pointed out the name thing to me about the author. I had a “doh!” moment, lol.
Hi Shawn,
Well, I agree with the other readers. I wanted much more of Dustin and Malcolm and I’m very glad there’s a sequel.
Wow, and there I thought you were being all clever and self-referential, what with having one character who *was* an M/M author and another character who was named after one. Oh, well. Sometimes stories have a life of their own, I suppose:-)