Second Winter by Sophia Soames
Genre | Gay / Contemporary / Romance |
Reviewed by | ParisDude on 04-September-2024 |
Genre | Gay / Contemporary / Romance |
Reviewed by | ParisDude on 04-September-2024 |
Ten years ago, Ned Anderson made the biggest mistake of his life.
Now he’s been invited to go back to Sweden for his exchange-year high school reunion. It’s a chance to reunite with all the people he once considered friends, and the invite promises a charcuterie board, open bar, all that…crap.
The biggest mistake of his life was leaving, and if he went back…
Does he even want to?
Teddy Backman has become exactly what everyone expected of him. He runs his farm the way his father once did. Gets up in the morning and gets things done. Tries to remember what’s next. Wonders why he feels so violently lonely when he’s surrounded by so many good things. The sun. The sky. The earth. The trees. All the trees.
He’s already deleted that email—the one inviting him to someone’s idea of a joke. There’s no one from back then he’s interested in talking to, let alone drinking or, God forbid, dancing with.
A high school reunion is Teddy’s idea of a nightmare, and he probably shouldn’t let anyone drag him along. He’ll only regret it.
But what’s the point of regret in the grander scale of things? It’s not like Ned Anderson’s going to turn up, is it? The guy who fled straight back to Arizona without even a last longing glance.
Arizona-born Ned Anderson visited his parents’ homeland Sweden exactly once, as an exchange high-school student. He spent a year in the godforsaken hole in the middle of endless forests where his aunt Violet lived, a monosyllabic spinster and dairy farmer. With his outgoing, all-American attitude, his boyish good looks, and his infectious humor, he had a perfectly good time, too. If only there hadn’t been that taciturn, yet intriguing classmate Teddy Backman. Ned would have given anything to befriend him (or more), but he never worked up the courage to talk to him. That is, almost. The very last night, right before returning to the USA, he followed Teddy home, and they spent a perfectly perfect night together. In hindsight, a pleasant boy thing, a one-night-stand, nothing more. Or so they both tried to persuade themselves.
Time has passed. Life has continued on both sides of the Atlantic. At twenty-eight, Ned has an office job in Phoenix, he has a small flat, he has Grindr for his bodily needs, and a two-screen game station set up in a corner of his living room when he needs to unwind. As for Teddy, after inheriting his parents’ farm and the thousands of acres of forest that come with it, he’s so busy he has no time to ask himself pointless questions or grieve his father’s recent passing away. Two lives that seem to run on distant and parallel paths, never to converge again. Not even the invitation to a high-school reunion party can change that. Namely because neither man has any intention of attending.
And yet. For reasons they don’t understand, they both do, in the end, almost as if something hidden deep inside compels them to. When they see each other again, after all those years, it dawns upon them that something—or rather someone—has always been missing from their lives. A stupid revelation because what’s the point if one is trapped in rural Sweden, the other in Arizona? What can they blame for their new hook-up if not the freely flowing alcohol? And what can they do with the tidal waves of doubt and self-questioning that follow once everything goes back to normal – Ned in his US office, Teddy in his Swedish forest? Is there a chance that their hopeless story transforms into a full-blown romance?
None at all, one would think. Well, Sophia Soames begs to differ. Because once again, this author manages to create two messy, clueless characters with pasts, questions, doubts, insecurities, weaknesses, and therefore three-dimensional substance, throws them into this unsolvable dilemma… and finds a way out for them exactly because they are both so messy. Soames has a knack of offering us loveable guys, meant for each other for anyone with eyes to see, but separated by circumstances. And somehow, they discover in themselves, in their interior mess, the answers to their questions and the strength to overcome said circumstances and find happiness. Soames’s stories, and this one is no exception, are tales of young men struggling with their becoming adults or coping with life (yep, I confirm, it’s damn hard). What keeps them afloat, what saves them ultimately is the realization that one and one is more than just two. Love isn’t arithmetic, it’s so much more.
What made this novel stand out for me was the setting. Yes, I’ve already read (and loved) Soames books that take place in Sweden (namely collaborations with Magdalena di Sotru, ‘Life is Good and Other Lies’ as well as ‘Life is Right Here’), but in this one, it’s almost a fantasy Sweden (with mosquitoes as an unwelcome extra) through the seasons. I’ve only visited Stockholm, but believe me—the short trip from the airport to the center felt as if I were crossing those dense fairy tale forests one imagines and which are so present in this novel. For an old romantic like me, seeing two soulmates evolve in this romantic setting and letting romance into their lives was a real treat. Which is why I wholeheartedly recommend this read.
DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the author. This book has been provided by the author for the purpose of a review.
Format | ebook and print |
Length | Novel, 227 pages |
Heat Level | |
Publication Date | 15-July-2024 |
Price | $4.99 ebook, $10.00 paperback, $14.99 hardcover |
Buy Link | https://www.amazon.com/Second-Winter-Sophia-Soames-ebook/dp/B0CW1KDWPL |