Caging the Tiger by Michelle Houston

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Again, as always, Michelle Houston is able to concentrate an entire full story in less than 25 pages. Kyle is an orphaned boy that, at the age of 17 started a pen-pal relationship with Mark, a magician travelling the world. Mark helped Kyle going through the loneliness of his youth, more when the boy realized that he was gay, and being also Mark, he became a distant big brother to whom the young boy could refer. When Kyle discovered his shapeshifter nature, obviously he couldn’t reveal it to Mark, but nevertheless Mark was there to help him.

Now 5 years later, Kyle has the chance to see face to face Mark, and also to find out if what he is suspecting, it’s true: Mark does a trick on the stage with him turning into a white tiger, and Kyle is suspecting that it’s not at all a trick. Maybe Mark is a shapeshifter like him, and that would mean that Kyle is not alone in the world.

There is obvious a parallelism between being gay and being an otherworldly creature. Kyle feels lonely and like a misfit not only for being gay but also for being a “strange” creature. In a world where, hopefully, being gay is no more the tragedy it was before, the author adds the shapeshifter nature of Kyle to put a heavy burden on his shoulder. A burden that Kyle hopes Mark will help him to discard.

The short story is sweet and nice, and there is a very romantic feeling when Kyle is swept away by Mark, who has not the white stallion, but he has the black cap like a true romance hero.

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Amazon Kindle: Caging the Tiger

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