Author: Alexis Woods
Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
Pages/Word Count: 82 Pages
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Blurb: A story from Boughs of Evergreen: A Holiday Anthology (proceeds go to The Trevor Project).
Eight nights to fall in love.
Ari has a mission: meet and fall in love with a man chosen for him by God. The catch: he only has eight nights to complete it—the eight nights of Chanukah.
Gabriel has a test of faith. Reaching out to a young man, he finds himself confronted with the unbelievable. Believe, and the Festival of Lights may herald a miracle.
Review: What a fantastically different and unique story. All I could think when I finished was ‘Wow.’ Sincerely. This book was super cool from the get go. Set up to cover each of the eight nights of Chanukah, Lion’s Hero gives us the story of Ari, an angel sent down from Heaven with the task of meeting and bonding with his ‘other half.’ His intended turns out to be a Jewish guy from Atlantic City, who works with at-risk teens and mayyyybe enjoys a bit of daddy-kink. Have I got your attention now? ;)
Ari is fortunate enough to have God point his soul mate, Gabriel, out to him – most of us aren’t quite that lucky – and is able to set to work getting to know him right away on the first night. Since Ari isn’t human, however, he has a difficult time interacting with Gabriel, and ends up running away fairly quickly on both the first and second nights. He has only eight nights to make Gabriel fall in love with him or he’ll have to wait an entire year to try again, so time is of the essence. He enlists the help of a few of his “brothers”, other former angels, so that he can appear to fit in better, and figure out how to let Gabriel know his intentions.
The author, Alexis Woods, did such a fantastic job with the details in this story I can’t imagine anyone not being enthralled with it. From the shirts Ari is wearing each night, to both his and Gabriel’s tattoos, and how all of the supporting characters are connected, she has all the bases covered. The only criticism I have, and it’s a very small one, it’s that I don’t think she needed the epilogue. I thought the story ended at the end of the eighth night, and I was perfectly satisfied with that. I liked the content of the epi – it’s always nice to know what happens to the characters you fell in love with – but, it definitely felt a bit like it was there because she felt she had to have one, like it was somewhat forced. Again, that is a teeny, tiny issue with what was otherwise a brilliant story!
I truly loved this one, and absolutely recommend you add it to your Christmas book list!
You can buy Lion’s Hero here:
