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This novel reminded me of a very nice movie, Undertow, with a tragic ending, and so I was reading it teetering on the edge of fear, wanting to like these characters but afraid of what would be of them. Lucky for me, this is a romance, and of course, although non-conventional and not even totally rounded, there was a some sort of happily ever after for them.Ori is finally coming back home, but unfortunately his childhood friend, and unrequited love, Kalani, is not waiting for him, or at least, not in a way Ori is happy to acknowledge. Kalani is in coma, according to the doctors it’s irreversible, and Kalani’s foster mother is asking Ori’s consent to detach the machines maintaining his body alive. When Kalani was attacked, Ori tried to come back home as soon as possible, but instead he ended up doing 1 year of prison for attacking his superior officer. Now one year later, Kalani’s situation didn’t change, and basically they are waiting only for Ori to have the chance to say goodbye. But the same night, Kalani’s spirit appears to Ori, and he is very much alive. Both Kalani than Ori know Kalani’s body is dying, and basically Kalani is asking Ori to let it go, but Ori thinks that, if he will be able to solve a mystery in Kalani’s past, that will allow his spirit to find peace. But finding peace will mean that Kalani will really go forever, in a place where Ori and him will not have the chance to be finally together, unless Ori doesn’t follow him there too.
Hawaiian’s tradition are quite complex, and they are a mix of religion and myth. What I always find in these novels is the feeling that the admixture between them is so strong that paranormal becomes almost ordinary, seeing spirits is exceptional but not extraordinaire, and to someone like Ori, after the first surprise, is natural to accept Kalani is real and in need of his help. Ori and Kalani’s relationship, before and after Kalani’s accident, is bittersweet, already marked by tragedy, even before they were born.
This is not an easy novel, the plot is complex, made even more that by the different flashback not in chronological order, and at one point we even go back before Ori and Kalani were born, to a totally different pair who perhaps share the same forbidden love. More than paranormal, Hawaiian Gothic is spiritual, new age, mystic; if you like all these you will love it.
http://www.loose-id.com/hawaiian-gothic.h
Amazon Kindle: Hawaiian Gothic
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (June 12, 2012)
Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
I'm a faithful reader of T.A. Chance from the beginning; long or short, with cowboys or sport stars, fantasy, historical or contemporary, a new story by T.A. Chase always climbs the first place in my reading list. They are always different but still there is always this mix of romance and naughty sex that make them so good. And in a way, I can say that T.A. Chase loves everyone of his characters. 
This is the first book I read by this author, but even if I’m not sure, I suppose this is not a debut novel. The story is too polished, and the hand too expert for this to be a tryout, I really had the feeling I was reading the product of a skilled author. I have to be true, ghosts and zombies are not really my thing, and I was not really sure I wanted to continue reading it when I realized where the story was going, but the characters got me, and I couldn’t leave without knowing what was of them.
This is the story of Emma and Mandy; if this sentence sounds strange, giving that Mandy is for most of the novel a second stage character we hear only through a phone, that was my feeling. I was really not liking much Emma at the beginning, since my idea was that she was not treating well Mandy; Emma and Mandy have a 15 years long relationship, and despite this, Emma is still hiding things to Mandy, something I relate to not trusting her, and who you can trust if not the person you love? i.e. Emma was not really in love with Mandy. I’m happy I was wrong, and what you will read, if you trust my words, is “also” the romance of Emma and Mandy.
This is a more than nice story taking back alive the old fashioned love stories of an handsome and wealthy American man meeting a same young and pretty English rose. Only that, in this case, the English rose is a male specimen.
At the end of the nineteen century, two lovers have to face the worst of separation, death. They are both men, but this is not the story of how difficult it was for them to be together, when the story starts they are a couple and they would be happy if not that Philip is deathly ill, consumption, and day after day he is fading away. Jonathan, who is also the wealthier of the two, decides to bring Philip in a big mansion just outside New Orleans, not in the hope to see him better, but to alleviate his last months; in the isolated place, with only the servants as witnesses, Jonathan and Philip are building memories that will serve to Jonathan to survive losing his lover. 
