Author: Alex Beecroft
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Pages/Word Count: 273 Pages
At a Glance: Trowchester England is a marvelous fictional city I would love to visit in person – especially a certain little bookshop with a green painted door and a knocker shaped like a giant squid!
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Michael May is losing it. Long ago, he joined the Metropolitan Police to escape his father’s tyranny and protect people like himself. Now his father is dead, and he’s been fired for punching a suspect. Afraid of his own rage, he returns to Trowchester—and to his childhood home, with all its old fears and memories. When he meets a charming, bohemian bookshop owner who seems to like him, he clings tight.
Fintan Hulme is an honest man now. Five years ago, he retired from his work as a high class London fence and opened a bookshop. Then an old client brings him a stolen book too precious to turn away, and suddenly he’s dealing with arson and kidnapping, to say nothing of all the lies he has to tell his friends. Falling in love with an ex-cop with anger management issues is the last thing he should be doing.
Finn thinks Michael is incredibly sexy. Michael knows Finn is the only thing that still makes him smile. But in a relationship where cops and robbers are natural enemies, that might not be enough to save them.
Review: Trowchester Blues is about Michael May, a policeman who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, with the runaways he cannot help and the bodies he can no longer handle having to find. It smacks too close to his childhood when he could not save his mother from the abuse of his father – suddenly, he has seen one to many dead bodies and resigns from the force, lost in a sea of self-doubt and loathing. He heads to his childhood home in Trowchester, hoping to purge his demons – queue his savior, Finn – or Fintan Hulme. Finn runs Bibliophile Bookshop, which is a wonderful place of imagination and fiction. The bookshop is a perfect representation of its owner – Finn is the bookshop and the bookshop is Finn. Finn is clever, nimble and dapper – and is whatever story you would like for him to be today. A former fence of upscale stolen goods, many of which were priceless artifacts, including rare manuscripts, he keeps the world from knowing his past and works every day on being a reformed “good” man.
Oh, how Michael needs Finn’s sparkle and oh, how Finn needs Michael’s structure and grounding good influence. Their happily-ever-after is not an easy path, especially when their faith in each other is tested by Finn’s questionable choices and Michael’s own insecurities. But they get there – together with new souls intact, and the better for it all. “Time now, nothing but time ahead of him, time enough to slow down and feel the prickles on his skin that radiated out from Michael’s touch. Time to appreciate the way his blood yearned towards the other man like a magnet to its pole.” This book teaches us that growing, and becoming better people because of it, can be painful and soul wrenching experiences. That shattering the paradigms in which we view ourselves and others can be an incredibly freeing experience, but no one said it was easy. In Michael’s words, “Finn restored his faith in everything, in God and man, in the earth and the sky and even in himself.”
The author, Alex Beecroft, does an incredible job of drawing pictures of these men and the place they live. By reading this book I have been to Trowchester, and I have met these men – I would know them on the street if I met them. When she describes Trowchester, I can smell the rain on the streets and picture the cathedral in the distance of the flower lined sidewalks. I am dying to go to Finn’s bookshop, where the smell of leather and paper and knowledge permeates the air. I am looking forward to the next installment of this series Blue Eyed Stranger and would highly recommend this book!
You can buy Trowchester Blues here:
