First Monday of the month means another great review from the Review Team!! @Parker Owens brought us a story that just literally stopped posting a few weeks ago. I read the story week by week and I have to admit it is on the much higher side of great  

A Life Lived
by Dabeagle

Reviewer: Parker Owens
Status: Complete
Word Count:  51,487

The number of Gay romances is enormous and growing. There’s a reason for this, of course. Guy meets guy, hearts flutter, emotions swirl, connections get made, and love is born, all while tensions and uncertainties rise and break over the reader. It can be a most satisfying genre.  A Life Lived by GA Classic Author Dabeagle isn’t one of these.

Colin McKenzie, an older Gay man who has seen enough of life to have graduated to curmudgeonhood. The guy he yearned for was never really available, and too many years have gone by for any kind of reconnection. He goes to work, does his shopping, and spoils his dog, Daisy.  Existence is uncomplicated, if kind of flavorless.

Into this existence crashes Bailey, a stick-thin runaway, who is clearly the victim of abuse.  Readers searching for appealing personalities need look no further than the boy and Daisy. Dabeagle writes these characters with a deft hand. They’re not saccharine – McKenzie’s own gruffness wouldn’t stand that – but they draw out the older man’s character for the reader as the story develops.

Indeed, the story unfolds like a flower bud opening to the sun. Each successive scene reveals new details, and deeper understanding of the man McKenzie was and has become. Innocent, genuine characters like Bailey occur in many stories, yet Dabeagle’s treatment can make even jaded readers eager to turn the pages. It’s sometimes hard to recall that the story isn’t about the boy, but about the old man in his dusty old house full of sepia-brown memories.  

This is the important thing to recall as one encounters the final chapters.  The easy thing would have been to write a story about Bailey, and all the discoveries of adolescence that await him.  But the point of this highly engaging tale is how McKenzie, having lived for many disappointing years to this point, still can be changed and brought to life. It’s also refreshing to read a story that isn’t all about heavy sex, but instead emphasizes the satisfaction inherent in actually living into something fulfilling.  If A Life Lived isn’t on your reading list already, let me encourage you to add it today.

Category: Fiction  Genres:  Comedy, General Fiction  Sub-genres: Comedy Modern, Drama  Tags:  teen, mature adult, adult, no sex, modern   Rating: Mature