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A review by melaniebopp
The Other Side of Winter by G.B. Gordon
3.0
Review available on All About Romance - http://likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=10562
In The Other Side of Winter by G.B. Gordon, our two heroes, Bengt and Alex, are being reunited after a year apart, hoping that their week-long romance was enough to keep them together now that they are in the same place. Alex is one of many refugees from Santuario, a poor and corrupt nation, hoping to find a new home. Bengt is a homicide detective, and wants nothing more than to take care of Alex, and give him anything he could possibly want. Unfortunately, both Alex and Bengt are alpha males, and Alex pulls away each time Bengt tries to reach out.
Alex’s reactions to Bengt and to the whole new culture he finds himself in strike me as pretty true-to-life – he’s obviously suffering PTSD, and actually sees a therapist! That was wonderful! And the power imbalance (especially since both of the heroes are fairly dominant) was the most interesting part of the story (and led to a lot of angry sex. Like, most of it, actually). The problem is the entire plot is based around this, and it’s just not enough to keep the story moving. There’s a murder mystery that occupies a large part of the story, but it actually pulls the reader out of the whole sci-fi genre bit.
I cannot harp enough on the importance of world building, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, and sadly, that’s where this one failed for me. It literally took reading the spoiler tags on the publisher’s website to confirm that yes, this book is sci-fi, is actually on a different planet and in the far future, and not in some made-up Scandinavian countries. I honestly thought we were in Iceland or something.
I’d be interested to read the prequel to this, and try the author again, but while it was an enjoyable read, there wasn’t anything particularly great about it.
In The Other Side of Winter by G.B. Gordon, our two heroes, Bengt and Alex, are being reunited after a year apart, hoping that their week-long romance was enough to keep them together now that they are in the same place. Alex is one of many refugees from Santuario, a poor and corrupt nation, hoping to find a new home. Bengt is a homicide detective, and wants nothing more than to take care of Alex, and give him anything he could possibly want. Unfortunately, both Alex and Bengt are alpha males, and Alex pulls away each time Bengt tries to reach out.
Alex’s reactions to Bengt and to the whole new culture he finds himself in strike me as pretty true-to-life – he’s obviously suffering PTSD, and actually sees a therapist! That was wonderful! And the power imbalance (especially since both of the heroes are fairly dominant) was the most interesting part of the story (and led to a lot of angry sex. Like, most of it, actually). The problem is the entire plot is based around this, and it’s just not enough to keep the story moving. There’s a murder mystery that occupies a large part of the story, but it actually pulls the reader out of the whole sci-fi genre bit.
I cannot harp enough on the importance of world building, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, and sadly, that’s where this one failed for me. It literally took reading the spoiler tags on the publisher’s website to confirm that yes, this book is sci-fi, is actually on a different planet and in the far future, and not in some made-up Scandinavian countries. I honestly thought we were in Iceland or something.
I’d be interested to read the prequel to this, and try the author again, but while it was an enjoyable read, there wasn’t anything particularly great about it.