reviews_and_ramblings | Best Paranormal / Horror Novel (2° place) The Rest of Our Lives by Dan Stone

The novel is a surprising light and nice book. I really was not expecting to find it funny, from the blurb and the type of story I was ready to read an almost new age full of hidden symbols book. And instead this is the story of two young men in love and the trouble they face to be together... even if, truth be told, the trouble are not so much and the happily ever after is near and clear.

Colm is an elemental witch, he has the power to control the ice, but he doesn't know it. He was not taught in the "art" of being a witch when he was young, he discovered his powers alone and he thinks at himself like some freak. He chose to live in the shadow as much as possible, and it's not an insignificant detail that he is a photographer, usually who stays behind the camera is someone who doesn't like to be at the center of the stage, he prefers to work behind the scene. Then he meets Aidan, another elemental witch, a fire witch; it's quite obvious that fire and ice are fated to be together, but there is something else between Colm and Aidan. They are forever lover, they lived many life, in every life they met and for some reason they were torn apart. It was not always some cruel game of fate, sometime it was Aidan who left Colm... actually more than sometime. Colm was always the abandoned lover, the one who loved too much and who payed for it. In some past life he was also a woman, and sometime he also gave birth to Aidan's son, but for a reason or the other, they have never had an happily ever after. And maybe this is the reason why now, Colm is running away from Aidan, instead of being happy to find him again... even if Colm doesn't remember all their past life, his heart knows that loving Aidan is dangerous, unless they don't change the past trend.

Aidan is not so change in this life, he is still the flirty and happy-to-go type of man that he was in almost all his past life; he is ready and willing to claim eternal love to Colm, but he does it without thinking, following the rush of the moment. Aidan is like is elemental, fire, he burns quickly and quickly fades, but if you are good in feed him, he can be a constant source of warm and comfort. Colm instead is like the ice, he has good and long last memory, he tends to be more careful in his action, and apparently he is less involved, but once he loves you, once he has you in his ice prison, it's almost impossible to run away.

I tried to tell you how the author plays with these two characters and their different behavior, how they are apparently at the opposite, but that they complete each other; but don't forget what I said at the beginning, all in all this is a "light" story, full of nice supporting characters, daddy leathermen and latino twinks, bearded drag queens and horny teenagers.... plus it's also quite sexy without being overtly detailed. Colm and Aidan love each other, and also if Colm is still quite uncertain of all this thing of being a witch, of one thing he is sure, Aidan is his boyfriend, and he was so for the past two thousand years, and so it's better that no one tries to take him away from him, or he will show them how it's living in the North Pole. Even if this is a paranormal romance (how it couldn't be with witches and co around), I didn't feel it too much "out of the ordinary", I read it more like a nice modern love story with some paranormal twists.