Winter Garden by Vic Winter

[reviews_and_ramblings]

All the anthology is 38 pages long, so you can understand that the 4 stories in it are really short, but despite this they are really sweet and truly romantic.

The Cabin: Richard and Davey are long-term lover, but their relationship is on stake. Davey is slowly recovering from a breakdown but the worst is gone, and Richard now can leave him without worry for his good health. Only that Davey doesn't want for Richard to go: it's not clear what are the troubles between them, probably the long illness of Davey put an heavy weight on their relationship and they lost the real point to be together, not for duty but for love. Davey hopes that, spending a week in his isolated cabin will help them to find again the right reason to be together.

The Mountain Troll: Jacob knows than a troll is living on the mountain, even if no one has ever seen him. But he is there and his traditions help the village to maintain their own tradition, if the troll disappear, also their village will disappear, lost to the modern society which slowly is eating them away. So when the troll stops to accept the offers from the village, Jacob decides to go find the troll, and he is very surprised when he discovers that the troll is an handsome man, Trogarth. And so for Jacob will not be an hard sacrifice to be the chosen "virgin" to placate the troll's hunger in order to preserve the village's harmony...

The Polar Bear Snowglobe: This is really only a scene which proves that, when you are in love, you are willing to do everything for your lover, even take a dip in a frozen lake...

The Winter Garden: Peter had great dreams when he was young, and all his dreams had an happily ever after. But when Peter is eighteen years old, and still too young to be alone, his parents didn't accept him being gay and he found himself without an home and without the necessary skills to provide for himself. Three years later, Peter is an homeless and the winter is severe, and he has no shelter... in his loneliness he sees a light, that draws him to a wonderful winter garden and to Gabe, a beautiful young man. But Gabe and his winter garden are real or he is finally in heaven? If for having his happily ever after, Peter needs to die, he is willing, if it means having Gabe forever...

I really like all the stories in the anthology, but my favorite is the first, The Cabin. It has a real feeling, for me it's the only one with a real happily ever after. The Mountain Troll is nice, and I can imagine that Jacob and Trogarth will have a long happily life together, but there is still the problem of Jacob's aging. Instead I really didn't understand the end of The Winter Garden; I didn't catch if Peter died or not, if Gabe was an angel or not... it's a nice tale, and I decided to give it a "normal" end, with an happily ever after, but really I didn't understand it.

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Reading List:

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Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I think so, I have the feeling that Gabe was for real the angel Peter would like him to be. Elisa