reviews_and_ramblings | 2016 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Fjord Blue by Nina Rossing (51-03-17-2016)

There's a beautiful, heartbreaking, and realistic young love story here — buried under long info dumps lasting several chapters, the story being told and not shown, and the main characters being a bit too unlikeable: The rebellious anti-hero with his unpleasant, unsympathetic nature, and the hot foreign guy who's so kind and good he'd give teeth ache to the sugar plum fairy.

Fjord Blue by Nina Rossing
Gay Young Adult
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Harmony Ink Press (March 10, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1634763858
ISBN-13: 978-1634763851
Amazon: Fjord Blue
Amazon Kindle: Fjord Blue

After a year of partying, getting into fights, and finally crashing his father s vintage Bonneville in a car chase, seventeen-year-old Benjamin has pushed his parents to their limit. It s not like he can tell them why he s so angry at life, or that he ll do anything to distract himself from the lust he feels toward his best friend s sexy cousin, Dino. He can t even protest when he s sent away from Miami to spend the summer working on his grandparents farm in the desolate fjords of Western Norway.

The farm is isolated and old-fashioned, and so are Ben s religious grandparents. It s cold and wet, and Ben is miserable and restless. Relief comes in the form of Even, the eighteen-year-old blond Viking farmhand who offers Ben friendship and a new outlook on his situation. But Even is hiding issues of his own.

Ben s grandparents want him to inherit the farm, but the only thing keeping Ben there is his desire to know Even better. As the feelings between the two young men grow, things kept hidden are slowly revealed for good and ill and they must turn to unlikely places for encouragement."

Rainbow Awards Guidelines: http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/rainbow_awards_2016.html