WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 37. Halloween Month Special Reviews: Within the Mind (Book 1 of In the Mind Series) by Alice Winters

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43782674

Alice Winters is known for her modern gay fiction titles like The Hitman’s Guide Series and gay modern fantasies like Vampire Related Crime Series, the latter of which I was tempted to review for this special month, but I chose SJ Hines’ Beacon Hill Sorcerer Series which touches on both magic and Vampires more in-depth. Still, I don’t want to leave a good gay fiction writer like Alice Winters out of my reviews, so I chose to address the opening book of her telepath series. Mind-readers can be creepy under the right context, especially when they are entering the mind of a serial killer. Alice Winter built a very interesting atmosphere in this novel reminiscent of the psychological thriller movie, The Cell, readers like me who enjoy psychological horror and mystery will enjoy this. It is a story featuring double-meaning, dreamscapes, weird auditory cues, and a master manipulator villain. Though, fair warning Alice Winters’ main characters do tend to have a bit more snark than most gay fiction writers, outside TJ Klune. Several reviewers on Goodreads were thrown off this book due to the style choice, I know it’s a personal preference, but I like snarky characters.

Length-wise, it is 272 pages long and 9 hours 24 minutes on audible. It’s a decent read for a psychological thriller with gay romance between the two “gifted” male main characters.

Plot: Seneca Bates and Chevy Wright are partners working as special detective in collaboration with local police to help people identify suspects or remember certain details. They do this through their unique dual gift of psychic telepathy for Chevy and psychic mimicry abilities for Seneca. Chevy is openly gay, Seneca is bisexual. Neither man have a romantic relationship with each other initially; though there is deep sexual tension between them. Seneca, especially, attempts to hit on his partner and is favored by Chevy’s mother as a potential partner. At their government job, they are called into investigate a series of gruesome murders. While the serial killer is discovered and caught early, being a well-known Artist named Mason Paige, the serial killer ensnares Chevy and Seneca into his mind through an illusion with horrific imagery and potentially deadly consequences to both men as they try to probe his mind for the location of additional victims. It also reveals a horrible truth about Chevy’s and Seneca’s past. Seneca’s traumatic past involved a former female teenage lover and an automobile accident that he still blames himself for. Chevy’s traumatic past involved the death of her sister due to her abusive boyfriend. Chevy was 15 years old at the time and rejected his psychic gifts to the point of denying it, so he never knew the truth of the domestic abuse and blamed himself after her death. The event brings both Chevy and Seneca closer to each other, they reach the point of intimacy in a hotel room while they were continuing their investigations into Paige, who they believed was also psychically gifted. Even though they narrowly escape insanity and death on several occasions, they must continue to unravel the mystery and motive behind the serial killers’ actions. It leads them to an Asylum, where nothing is what it would seem. A tale of psychic investigations, gay romance, psychological horror, and gruesome imagery awaits readers.

Review: This is actually not a bad book, despite what some reviewers have claimed. I understand the dislike for the dialogue and the world building could have used more work, but the story and the concept were quite interesting.

I think what sold this story for me were the scenes of Chevy and Seneca running around the mind of Mason Paige. When you read that part in the story early on, you will get the feeling of being part of a disjointed nightmare. It was a perfect concept for the mind of serial killer, which I knew due to my horror movie interests came from The Cell, but I do not fault Alice Winters for using an old lesser-known movie as material. Mason Paige’s imagination of a psychotic figure stalking Chevy throughout his mind, haunting him with murderous intent, and the eerie voice from an antiquated record player of “You’re going to die” just added to the overall tensions. Even when you think the psychic horror has ended, there’s further psychic hallucinations, but instead of the generic horror visions that you might finds in the mainstream genre, Alice Winter takes us on a personal journey of both the main characters.

Beyond the heroes of the story, we also got a very complicated and compelling villain. He’s a murderous psychopath, but he’s not doing all his serial killing murders without reason. His psychic abilities are tied to a variant of mental projection or altered perception, which he uses to manipulate other people to harm themselves and others. He does this out of a sense of vengeance for what happened to him and who was killed in the past. While I can understand his motivations and sympathize with it, he was truly an amoral villain, so plot-wise it was not complex character arc.

Now for the negatives, I agree with reviewers, Alice Winters did go overboard with the banter between Chevy and Seneca. I enjoy sexual tension and overt lover’s quarrels, but Seneca is way over the top. I’ve known guys, who were comfortable with their sexuality with no fear of describing sex acts over coffee, but knowing there’s such people in the world doesn’t mean I enjoy them as characters in a gay romance. There’s a time and place for that kind of stuff and I am no prude either. Seneca just tried too hard, which is a major turn off for some gay and bi guys, who read this story. Another problem is the inadequate nature of psychic abilities, we don’t understand how psychic abilities like telepathy, projection, mimicry, or even “luck based” abilities like Seneca’s sister appears to have actually work. Psi abilities have been great source material for many genres, but Alice Winters did not specify or show detail for the rules of her world. That’s a critical problem in fiction stories like this.

My Review: 3.25 out of 5, it is a good Psychological Horror/Psychic investigation story. I’d recommend it for those who enjoy the concept of going into a serial killer’s mind, altered perceptions, and telepathy stories. It’s not great, but Alice Winters put some work into her concept.