2016 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Priddy's Tale by Harper Fox (378-09-02-2016)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This was enchanting and one of the best books I’ve read this year! I’m not sure it shouldn’t have been in the Gay Fantasy category? but that didn’t matter to me. I adored the blend of mystery, merman fantasy, and contemporary lives. There was wit, angst, joy, and action. The setting was well and vividly described. Merou was adorable, as was his pure delight at stepping in and out of time periods and making the most of what each had to offer. His attraction and care for Priddy was superbly handled, pure and true, and left me with a genuinely happy smile on my face all through. Priddy’s awful life to date was handled pragmatically but compassionately, and my heart actually ached to see him battle on. What I loved most was that, despite all that, he remained as handsome in mind as he did in looks. He *deserved* any joy that was to come his way. Their banter was delightful, the unfolding of Merou’s true nature handled with plausibility (as much as it can LOL) and amusement. My only *tiny* disappointment was that, for me, it drifted into rather soppy ending scenes, and an obsession with where merman kept their cocks! But I sobbed, smiled and sighed all the way through and LOVED it.

Priddy's Tale by Harper Fox
Gay Contemporary Romance
Publisher: FoxTales (June 18, 2016)
Amazon Kindle: Priddy's Tale

What doesn’t kill you sometimes makes you wish it had...
Priddy’s a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don’t get to see. He’s young, sweet-natured and gorgeous, but that’s not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life.
He’s a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn’t his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub high leaves him fractured, hallucinating, too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse – nothing to do but press the occasional button and keep the windows clean – he gratefully accepts.
His plans to live quietly and stay out of trouble don’t last very long. A ferocious Atlantic storm washes a stranger to Priddy’s lonely shore. For a shipwrecked sailor, the new arrival seems very composed. He’s also handsome as hell, debonair, and completely unconcerned by Priddy’s dreadful past.
Priddy has almost given up on the prospect of any kind of friendship, and a new boyfriend – let alone a six-foot beauty with eerily good swimming skills – out of the question entirely. But Merou seems to see undreamed-of promise in Priddy, and when they hit the water together, Priddy has to adapt to Merou’s potentials too, and fast. His lover from the sea might be a mere mortal from the waist up, but south of that line...
Far-flung west Cornwall has a hundred mermaid tales. Priddy’s loved the stories all his life. Now he has to face up to a wildly impossible truth. Merou’s life depends upon his courage and strength, and if Priddy can only find his way in the extraordinary world opening up all around him, all the ocean and a human lifetime needn’t be enough to contain the love between merman and mortal.

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