reviews_and_ramblings | Aloes by Chris Quinton

I had already noticed from the previous books I read by the same author, that Chris Quinton is no a “common” author, and Aloes is another proof of that; a mix between thriller, romance, paranormal and even a bit of gothic, Aloes changes shade at almost every page.

Perry is a successful thirty years old architect with a perfect life, perfect home and perfect boyfriend; they met in fourth grade, were together since then and now they are paying the mortgage of a nice suburban home in a nice liberal small town. Then in a blink of a moment Perry looses home and boyfriend: coming back home sooner than expected, he finds Cray, the perfect boyfriend, cheating him with a much younger man. First reaction is to throw both of them out, then instead he decided to let off some steam driving, and when he goes back home, with a migraines as companion, he decides to take a pill… from the wrong prescription. 4 days later he awakes in the hospital with a bad cut on his forehead and a strange sensibility to recognize true from false from the taste they left in his mouth, bitter aloes for false, sweet apple for true.

Here is the first turn, from a contemporary (and sweet romance) gone bad to a paranormal story with supernatural power. Being Perry an almost virgin, Cray was his one and only lover, and boyfriend, and man, the reader maybe will expect from Perry to take a swing on his life, to become some type of superhero, to fight for justice in a world of ugliness… and instead basically Perry uses his new ability to find a good apartment, skipping the dishonest realtors, and to decide if the next boyfriend / lover is worth his time.

In the meantime, he is assigned a new project, the restoration of a huge Victorian mansion in Pennsylvania for a multimillionaire hi-tech guru, Drew, who happens to be gay and quite interested in Perry. So the second turn is on a Cinderella type of story? Perry will be swept away by wealthy Drew and they will live happily ever after? Wrong. As soon as he is back home from hospital, Perry starts to receive threatening calls and letters, and when he moves to Pennsylvania to do an inspection of the huge mansion, the almost abandoned house is the right place to add a bit of mystery to the story. There are no actually ghosts who come out to visit, but the place would be right for them.

Between trying to understand who wants to kill him and building a new life (if that someone will not kill him before), Perry finds also time to dodge his time between Joe, former friend and candidate as next lover without strings, and Drew, who is actually the favourite of Perry’s nightly wet dreams, but who doesn’t give to Perry the same security old pal Joe does. Said that Perry will have the chance to “taste” both, one time, and to decide who is better: in this case, Perry can’t use his sense of taste to do that, there are more enjoyable way to do that (and not, no pun intended), but in a way or the other, it’s always a thing of tasting to understand what is true and what is false. And if in the end, both of them are true, Perry will have to decide who is better for him.

I’m not sure of the end of this story, I had the feeling that the author wanted to tell more, maybe she is thinking to a sequel? For example, Perry and Drew spent a lot of time deciding how to convert the mansion in an living museum, but then, at the end of the novel, we don’t know if they will really do it, and if yes, in what way; true, it was not the main purpose of the story letting us know, but after all the anticipation, and the excitement of both men for the project, I felt a bit deprived for the interruption. There is also another particular that is pending, but I will not say more to not spoil the story, but I’m sure that, when you will arrive to the end, you will have my same question in mind: and then?

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