Enjoyed it very much

I enjoyed this story very much. It was heartfelt and gripping. While at times a bit dark, it still kept you interested in the beauty and connection of the characters.

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Amazing book!

Andrew Q. Gordon does it again! This M/M romance has everything: action, sci-fi/fantasy and of course, romance! I laughed, I cried and it hooked me from the first. Get this book: you won't regret it!

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Waif rescued by tall, dark, and dangerous

First… I’ve got a bone to pick with the author. “Who names their kid Gar?” My mom! Of course it was a middle name, and I hated it, but I got it as it was my “uncle’s” middle name as well. I was told it was commonly a middle name in Scottish families. Hell, it’s even a valid word in SCRABBLE.

Now on to the review… This tale is a fresh take on the whole tall, dark, and dangerous meets young, dumb, and waifish, story-line. William Morgan, has taken to thinking of himself as Gar. A nearly indestructible avenging angel of sorts, Gar rescues Ryan, a young, homeless man. William believes himself possessed by a vengeance demon. While it’s made him forever young, and nearly indestructible, it means that Gar’s had to cut himself off from Will’s friends and family. He fears that he puts any who get close to him in danger, Plus there’s whole never aging thing… Faced with leaving Ryan on the streets, he takes him in instead, and as they grow closer, the young man reconnects Will with his more human self.

There is plenty of premise building here as the two delve into this whole vengeance spirit thing. As the two men Ryan (24) and Will (67 but looks 20) also bridge the decades of difference in their experiences and come to love each other.

This story is well told, riveting, and fast paced. Both guys are charming in their own special ways. I quickly felt the chemistry between them, and enjoyed spending time in their company. There’s also enough gritty action for this to satisfy those with a taste for ever popular “police partner tropes.” But be warned, Will is more vigilante than lawman.

Being so much older than than Ryan, Will’s dated vocabulary contains many phrases that have come into disuse. Ryan poking fun at Will’s dated vocab is a bit of a running joke. It really works well here.

An added bonus… The story is set in urban Washington D.C. Many of the locales mentioned were familiar to me from my many pilgrimages to the D.C. Gay Film Festivals over the years. I even had one of those oh so satisfying, geo-glitch spotting moments, when the author got one of the details wrong about the D.C. Metro trains.

With all the gunfire in this tale, you just know someone’s gonna get hurt or worse. Oddly, the way that that is handled here is pretty satisfying as well. There’s even a bit of ambiguity here that actually makes for a better ending than what I expected.

Though the bedroom gymnastics aren’t as graphic as in many M/M romances, this pair’s fondness for shared showers ensures enough steamy action to make a more prudish “fella” blush.

Darcy Stark does a commendable job with the narration. The prose is clear, well paced and delivered in professional manner and the voice acting is good. Will and Ryan are both well realized, even giving some added depth to both characters. There’s not much dialogue from the remaining bit players. What is there is all presented in a clear and satisfactory manner, and Will’s ability to appear as someone else is aptly demonstrated in the various voices he assumes.

Although it’s slightly outside my normal wheelhouse, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I can easily see myself listening to this again. …Whenever I’m in the mood for a gritty tale of M/M romance with a neo-noir feel.

*** Note: While I received a free copy of this title, this is a fair and honest review ***

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Interesting Premise and Execution

A Joyfully Jay review

Story: 3.75⭐️
Narration. 4.5⭐️

In 1970, William “Will” Morgan was a twenty-six-year-old law student, in love and living with his boyfriend, David, when he unwillingly become the host of It—a sentient presence Will came to call the Spirit of Vengeance. It allowed Will to hear the cries of the souls of recently murdered innocents and compelled him to avenge them. After forty years as a host, Will has become Gar, an emotionless persona he donned to bury his compassion and shield his conscience from the reality of living a life devoid of any human connection beyond killing other murderers. Imagine Gar’s puzzlement when a young man on the metro named Ryan sparks not only interest and curiosity within him, but concern as well. When Ryan disembarks and Gar is overcome by a different call, one that he experienced only once before in his forty years as host, he instantly recognizes what it is and goes after Ryan.

As the two men spend time together, Gar slowly gives way to Will and the return of his humanity and all its questions, contradictions, and overwhelming messiness. Moreover, Will/Gar realizes that the connection he feels with Ryan is reciprocated in a manner neither man understands. Unfortunately, answers are hard to find and sometimes even harder to understand. The men try to fully explore the nature of Will/Gar’s Purpose and the entity he hosts and begin the slow process of unraveling Its mysteries. The process is complicated further by the fact that the bond they share and Will/Gar’s Purpose are interconnected in startling and dangerous ways; that despite his efforts, Will/Gar’s kills have been noticed by the FBI; and they are facing the vulnerabilities inherent in caring for someone. For Will/Gar, the price of reconnecting fully with his humanity and living as Will may be too high and too painful for him to accept.

Upon reading the blurb for Purpose, I was immediately intrigued by the concept of an avenging spirit that requires a human host to kill and the ramifications of what that kind of existence would have. Overall, I really enjoyed how Gordon uses the concept to explore humanity, justice, and survival mechanisms, as well as his eventual explanation of what the Purpose turns out to be. While the Purpose and entity from which it arises are categorized as a spirit, the story is not paranormal. If anything, Purpose has more sci-fi/spec-fic elements. Will/Gar’s long time as a host grants him not only enhanced strength, speed, and resilience, but an enhanced mind as well— one he uses to create tech that helps him navigate the world relatively unseen, among other psychic gifts.

“Someone died tonight.”

These are Will/Gar’s introductory words; they are a simple statement of fact, a call to action and invitation into Will/Gar’s life. Before meeting Ryan, Gar is essentially inhuman, in body, emotions and mind—an avenging killing machine who only finds satisfaction in creating interesting kills and a job well done. He has lived the majority of his life as Gar, and Ryan’s presence in his life forces Will out of hiding and makes Will/Gar question the Purpose, his actions, his seeming indifference to killing, and his choices in ways he hasn’t in more than three decades. Since trying to speak to the entity in the beginning provided no answers, Will/Gar’s has used his access to the memories of Its previous hosts to determine what the Purpose wanted and how to live this life. He disappeared from his family’s world, avoided companionship, and followed a straightforward, undeviating path of vigilante murder until Ryan. Ryan’s aversion to killing and brutality, even if seemingly deserved, permeates Will/Gar’s life and heart and provides a link to his buried past and humanness. In turn, Will/Gar begins to question if he can satisfy the Purpose in a way that would help him avoid both killing and the madness that destroyed previous hosts who denied or ignored the Purpose.

These aspects of the story are all compelling, creative, and thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately, they are somewhat overshadowed by Ryan, whose somewhat unpleasant personality detracts from the kindness, compassion, and clemency missing from Will/Gar’s life that Ryan is supposed to illustrate. The romantic aspect of their relationship just didn’t work for me as I found Ryan simply insufferable. After a series of bad boyfriends, with the last outing Ryan to his parents and leaving him homeless, I wanted to sympathize with him, especially as he is meant to be a voice of reason/conscience for Will/Gar. I tried DESPERATELY to like him, as disliking a character can be distracting, but as his and Will/Gar’s interactions perpetually cycle through Ryan being petulant and truculent and Will/Gar distressed about upsetting Ryan and rushing to soothe him, Ryan just became exhausting and I don’t have Will/Gar’s patience. You would think the vengeance machine with no social skills would be the main communication barrier they have. Nope. Ryan is inflexible, quick-tempered, stubbornly defiant (usually reminiscent of those TSTL characters in horrors), insecure, and selfish. Given that the events of the story and their relationship occur in a compressed time period of a few weeks and the story is told only from Will/Gar’s POV, learning to deal with Ryan’s less charming personality traits was not possible for me; moreover, as Will/Gar is the only character with a perceptible arc and growth, Ryan’s more annoying attributes stay sharp-edged and persistent throughout.

While Will/Gar’s adoration of Ryan and Ryan’s unhappiness with Will/Gar killing people is supposed to show Ryan’s goodness and humanity, the manner in which he tries to talk Will/Gar out of killing and examining the Purpose, particularly early on, seems more rooted in getting the life he wants than caring about others. Between the fact that Ryan literally can’t leave Will/Gar in the beginning because of their connection (although he wanted and tried to) and Will/Gar’s constant need to please Ryan, their relationship feels more like a homeless twenty-something twink making the best out of his situation when he gets stuck with a sixty-something gay man who can’t believe his luck and wants nothing more than to please his young beau. While Will/Gar’s sole mission is to make Ryan happy/smile (repeated many times since Ryan is often upset), Ryan does not show similar care and respect for Will/Gar.

For example, when Ryan learns about one of Will/Gar’s abilities, he’s disbelieving when told it has never been used with him. Although Will/Gar is hurt that Ryan believes him capable of disrespecting Ryan in that way, he calmly explains he would never violate Ryan or his trust like that. Yet when Ryan has the opportunity to access this gift, he tries it on Will/Gar and is disgruntled to learn Will/Gar is immune. Will/Gar finds it amusing; Ryan is resentful and glosses over the violation of privacy Ryan was so quick to accuse Will/Gar of, but attempted himself at the first opportunity. It is in ways both subtly problematic and obviously bothersome that kills the believability of a viable partnership for the two. While I understand Ryan acts as the catalyst to Will/Gar’s transformation and is supposed to spur him into questioning his accepted status quo, having them be in a relationship in which Ryan acknowledges and benefits from the fact that Will/Gar treats him like a king and something precious as he shows little to no equal consideration for Will/Gar as his boyfriend undercuts Ryan’s importance in Will/Gar’s life for so long that even the ending’s resolution to this inequity doesn’t make it better. I never thought I’d feel like the Gay Punisher with thousands of kills under his belt deserves better than the normal, suburban boy, but there it is.

While not overly impressed by Ryan, I am impressed with Darcy Stark’s performance as the narrator. His pacing is as deliberate as Will/Gar’s personality and fits well with the story’s tone. Moreover, just as Will sees Gar as someone separate from himself at first, Stark uses a specific voice for when Gar is front and center and a similar, yet modulated one for Will/Gar. Stark even manages another variant for situations and times of emotional vulnerability that are as “purely Will” as possible. Stark’s nuanced portrayal of Will/Gar and how it changes given how the main character views himself is a lovely piece of craftsmanship and shows Stark’s understanding of the character and engagement with the material. Additionally, the majority of the secondary characters have distinct voices that fit well, with only a couple of upper-ranking law-enforcement officials slipping into slightly difficult to distinguish territory towards the end. Although, most of the “thugs” are generically menacing sounding, they are only present for short scenes before meeting Vengeance, so it didn’t detract from Stark’s general care with the characters and portrayals. Despite my personal low tolerance for obstinate, contrary brats, I found Purpose to be a compelling sci-fi-esque mystery and journey of discovery that is more about the exploration than the individual pieces, and Stark’s narration makes it even worthier of a listen.

Now on a more personal level. There is one element of the story that disquieted me somewhat—an element that over the years, I have often left unaddressed in my reviews (unless egregiously painful) and that is the depiction of race in the story. Full disclosure—I am not saying Gordon portrayed characters in a racist way, nor do I believe there is anything racist in the story. What I say next is more a personal reflection on how the exclusion and inclusion of race may convey unintended allusions.

As a triple minority— queer, black and female— I’ve gotten used to consuming media with what I call my “Friends Vision.” It’s the dissociation and almost cognitive dissonance I need to enjoy entertainment that is improbably populated almost exclusively with people society has deemed “normal”—cis, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical, and white. Therefore, I generally don’t think about characters as anything other than white or how described; I make a note of race/ethnicity (or use of a religion if ethnicity is too much effort) if the author does: that “Muslim” cab-driver, the black bellhop/mugger/rapist, the Arab terrorist, or the abused hijab-wearing victim.

I ignore the impossibility inherent in stories told in locations such as New York City or even “ethnic” locations like “Africa” in which these “normals” are the only people present when, for instance, NYC is one of the most diverse places in the world in regards to intersections of race, religion, culture, and ethnicity and “ethnic” places are literally filled with the people who live there. I overlook the fact that usually, the exotic location/“foreign land” is named if European or a well-known or high-class travel destination, whereas you get the name of the continent in an alarming number of stories as opposed to, you know, individual African countries with their myriad languages, cultures, etc. for these locales.

So, when the first group to meet bloody vengeance was a bunch of drug-dealing black thugs, I let it flow past me. When the next set of would be killers are also black thugs, well, they are in DC after all. However, when the villain(s) for almost every call for vengeance ends up being a black person, except for the one Hispanic gang (with the appropriate MS-13 reference), it was almost impossible to ignore. However, this is not the first time Friends Vision hasn’t been enough. When that happens, I create a palatable head-cannon. For Purpose it’s this: Gordon is making a statement about the rampant lack of real justice found in bad neighborhoods and poor areas. Statistically, these areas are heavily policed, but have more unsolved crimes. Additionally, they tend to have a higher population of non-whites/minorities. Great.

Except for the fact the Will/Gar is white and is immediately targeted in one instance because of that whiteness while out to avenge a child that was raped and murdered. While there is mention of the people here grieving and being worried he’s a journalist there to profit from their pain, there are NO good people in this neighborhood. Someone literally tries to run him over with a car, and unlike other cases where Will/Gar fed the emotions/prodded people into violence or behaviors that got the perpetrator killed, Will/Gar admits to Ryan he didn’t have to incite the crowd to beat the rapist bloody and break his back. He actually had to calm them down when the police came. Even the mom’s pain and the people’s ange,r which should have painted them as sympathetic, simply made them seem no better than the monsters Will/Gar hunts. This is compounded by the fact that the only other portrayal of neighbors and loved-ones of Vengeance’s wrath showed them to be heartless scavengers.

The fact that the one white man Will/Gar is called to take vengeance upon gets to be a fleshed-out sympathetic character and the “innocent” soul was a mercenary homewrecker in life and vengeful and bloodthirsty in death, is not surprising and almost made me want to cry. Not because I believe Gordon was trying to portray minorities as the source of the violence, drugs, and homophobia of the world, or because I didn’t believe my own head-cannon, but because it was so blasé and unremarkable in its portrayals. I truly believe that my head-cannon is correct—these populations saw Vengeance because they are overlooked, impoverished, and seen as less important by society as a whole. There is ugliness and complicity in families of drug-dealers and criminals. However, that is not all that is there in those people and neighborhoods and in many cases not even most. Consistent, negative portrayals like this remind me that being invisible is, a lot of times, better than being visible, especially when what is portrayed is stereotypically negative and what is believed (either consciously or subconsciously) by many of the people with whom I interact.

Being seen as “one of the good ones” (and yes I have been told that) always reminds me of what the baseline is: angry, violent, incoherent. Bad. Reminds me that at 5-foot nothing there is a reason a woman will clutch her purse and cross the street when she sees me walking towards her. Reminds me there is a reason that a fellow college student, a stranger, felt comfortable and entitled to ask me “how it feels to take a more deserving white guy’s spot”.

If you’ve come this far with me and kept and open mind, thank you. The main take-away is simply this: be mindful. Be mindful of that stray thought or assumption you have about a person’s sexuality or intelligence or presence somewhere. Acknowledge it. Question it. Recognize the possibility for harm even when the intention is absent of it. Recognize that sometimes the shorthands we use to generalize can be hurtful; that coded language like “thugs” is a common dog-whistle used against black people. Recognize that EVERYONE’S lived experience is different, no matter what groups you identify with for the simple fact that every individual’s brain is different, creating inherently different sensorial and perceived realities. Add that to different parents, upbringings, socioeconomic standings, etc., then “normal” is what we define it as. When you look at a bell curve and say “that’s normal”, understand that, NO, that is AVERAGE—simply ONE generalized, oversimplified way to describe individuals.

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Uniquely Intriging

4 Blue Roses
3.5 Blue Flames

Narrator Darcy Stark delivered a chilling dark urban fantasy filled with dread anxiety and anguish. His superb reading and voice manipulation guaranteed a memorable experience. The cadence of his voice and his calm demeanor makes it very easy for listeners to get lost in the fantasy.

I found the plot intriguing and different than the usual. The personalities of the characters were intrinsically woven into the storyline revealing the symbiotic possession by a non-corporeal being. After roaming the earth for thousands of years, they finally figured out how to communicate with their hosts. This is where I got somewhat confused and fucking irritated. They roamed the earth to seek vengeance for those who died innocently, to feed the symbiont, only to find out it was never vengeance they were seeking. It’s too fucking complicated for me to describe, but that’s what makes this such an amazing audiobook. It will leave you questioning and debating with yourself long afterward. This shit is book club material.

The plot itself is about romance and two men who are probably soulmates. It does have a few tear-jerker moments towards the end. It does deeper explorations of the human psyche making this a story with depth and insight. It does not truly have a HEA, but it does leave you satisfied with the ending. Like I said it keeps you contemplating shit long afterward.

I do recommend this audiobook, it is the perfect prescription for when you want to listen to something fresh and different.

Happy Listening

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Gritty, imaginative, and unique

This story is full of interesting and entertaining details. We have an Avenging "spirit," Gar, who is in a symbiotic relationship with an entity from another plane that feeds from the life force as the dead leave this world. Gar became entangled with what he calls the Purpose, or Vengeance, 40 years prior to the present time.

Gar finds himself interested in a young man on the train, but he doesn't do people. However, he interacts with the boy enough to learn his name is Ryan and he is down on his luck. However, as soon as Ryan gets off the train, Gar knows something terrible is going to happen.

Ryan is bringing emotions back to Gar... Will's life, and this begins the VERY brief courtship between the two men. They immediately cohabitate as a couple, and though there are several fade to black love scenes, I had a hard time connecting with them as a couple. Eventually, they learn specific things that lead them to one another, but they chose to be in a relationship.

We don't learn much about Ryan's past, but his present day personality leaves a bit to be desired. He immediately wants to change the way Will has lived the last 4 decades, and when he doesn't get his way, he has no problem giving an attitude. He refuses to listen to requests made by a more experienced man who only wants to keep him safe. He can be sweet, but he can be a royal brat as well.

I really enjoyed the way the author brought the police into the storyline. Will uses his powers and technology to become a spirit that communicates with Detective Griffin. Unfortunately, an overzealous FBI agent has been tracking unsolved murders, and has his sights set on figuring out the mysterious Avenging spirit.

So, aside from the romance, I really, really enjoyed this audiobook. The twist at the end was quite ingenious, and most likely will throw a few listeners for a loop. Unfortunately (fortunately for me) I caught a detail early in the twist, so I didn't have to go through the emotional upheaval some people will.

Darcy Stark, as always, did a fantastic job with the narration. His choice of tone for Will/Gar and his thoughts was excellent. I didn't hear much differentiation between the regular story narrative and Ryan's voice, but they were rarely next to each other in sequence. Bravo for a great performance.

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Wow

This was deep. I really was sad how it ended, I really can’t believe Ryan didn’t make it. I was really pleased with how well this story flowed.

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