Stevie‘s review of Glass Tidings (2016 Riptide Holiday Charity Bundle, Book 3) by Amy Jo Cousins
Contemporary Gay Holiday Romance published by Riptide Publishing 03 Dec 16

Of the three authors contributing to this year’s Riptide Charity Bundle, Amy Jo Cousins is the most familiar to me, although I’ve previously read her stories featuring couples of college age or just a little older. For the Festive offering, by way of a contrast, we get to meet a pair of more mature characters – one in terms of experiences, the other definitely in terms of years. This novel is also the most obviously Christmas-themed of the bundle, taking place in and around a shop (or ‘Shoppe’) selling Christmas decorations, and only opening for the Festive Season and subsequent January Sale. Just the right place for a stranded drifter to find a job that will tide him over until he can afford to continue his journey south and catch up with the other Renaissance fair regulars at their customary overwinter camp in Texas.

Eddie Rodrigues has worked the faire circuit since leaving care as a teenager and is very familiar with selling seasonal gifts to visitors, as well as being a talented glass artist in his own right. When his plans to stay with a new lover for the winter fall through, he starts making his way down to Texas, first in his ex’s car and then on foot, when it breaks down and he has to seek alternative transport. He arrives in the closest small town not quite in time to warn a young girl about the car speeding towards her, and he is the only witness as the car continues on its way, leaving Eddie to call for help.

Seeing that Eddie is in need of some assistance himself, the first police officer on the scene takes him to her friend Grayson Croft, a long-time resident of the town, whose family have run the Christmas Shoppe for three generations. Grayson has never been greatly sociable and has become yet more reclusive since his last serious relationship fell apart ten years earlier. Charged with looking after Eddie and with trying to keep him in town until the car’s driver is found, Grayson is at first reluctant, but tries to be on his best behaviour: not doing anything that might be seen as taking advantage of Eddie in spite of their obvious mutual attraction.

Eddie appreciates everything Grayson does for him: giving him a place to stay and a job in the Shoppe, as well as setting him up with studio space and equipment so that he can make glass decorations to sell at the Shoppe. A skilled salesman, Eddie manages to persuade visitors to buy just a little more than they intended, but finds the nuances of small-town life a little harder to understand. He also worries that Grayson won’t want him around at the end of the season – even if Eddie is prepared to give up the travelling he enjoys so much – while Grayson worries that Eddie won’t be able to settle in one place and so will abandon him completely once Christmas is over. Obviously a compromise needs to be found.

I liked this book a lot. The mystery of who was driving the car and why they didn’t stop after hitting the girl felt a little unfinished to me, and I’d have liked to have learned a little more about both characters’ backgrounds. Overall, though, this is definitely a book to put readers in a properly Festive frame of mind.

Grade: B

Summary:

Eddie Rodrigues doesn’t stay in one place long enough to get attached. The only time he broke that rule, things went south fast. Now he’s on the road again, with barely enough cash in his pocket to hop a bus to Texas after his (sort-of-stolen) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Midwest, USA.

He’s fine. He’ll manage. Until he watches that girl get hit by a car and left to die.

Local shop owner Grayson Croft isn’t in the habit of doing people any favors. But even a recluse can’t avoid everyone in a town as small as Clear Lake. And when the cop who played Juliet to your Romeo in the high school play asks you to put up her key witness for the night, you say yes.

Now Gray’s got a grouchy glass artist stomping around his big, empty house, and it turns out that he . . . maybe . . . kind of . . . likes the company.

But Eddie Rodrigues never sticks around.

Unless a Christmas shop owner who hates the season can show an orphan what it means to have family for the holidays.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: