Genre: Historical, Romance, Urban Fantasy
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Maryann
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About The Book
A graduate student and an archivist fight a god.
Fall, 1969. Ulysses Lenkov should be working on his dissertation. Instead, he’s developing an unlucrative sideline in helping ghosts and hapless magic users. But when his clients start leaving town suddenly—or turning up dead—he starts to worry there’s something afoot that’s worse than an unavenged death or incipient insanity. His investigation begins with the last word on everyone’s lips before they vanish: the mysterious Dionysus.
Sam Sterling is an archivist who recently moved back to Madison to be closer to the family he’s not too sure he likes. But his peaceful days of teaching library students, creating finding aids, and community theater come to an end when the magnetic, mistrustful Ulysses turns up with a warning. There’s a god coming, and it looks like it’s coming for Sam.
Soon the two are helping each other through demon attacks, discovering the unsavory history of Sam’s family, and racing to find a solution that doesn’t lead to heartbreak and death. But as the year draws to a close, they’ll face a deadly showdown as they try to save Sam—and the city itself.
Dionysus in Wisconsin is the first in a new series of urban fantasy/historical M/M romances set in Madison, WI in the late 1960s/early 1970s. It doesn’t end on a cliffhanger and can be read as a stand-alone.
The Review
It’s 1969 in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ulysses Lenkov is at Lorenzo’s Lounge deciding what to select for his dissertation topic when he’s interrupted by Horse. Horse is a magical man who’s not quite attached to reality, but Ulysses watches out for him and offers his help. There’s something stranger than usual going on with Horse. He keeps repeating something about the “big guy” coming. Ulysses feels uncomfortable about the mention of the “big guy,” and finally gets Horse to reveal the name – Dionysus.
A few days later at his sister Celeste’s shop, he watches her draw a sigil in sand, adding more power with a quartz crystal. It points to one of the three photos he had gotten of those named Dionysus. Celeste warns Ulysses that he should talk with Babushka, their Grandmother Ekaterina or Aunt Cass as they were all magic users.
But Ulysses decides he can do this on his own, as the man didn’t look very dangerous. Indeed, he looked like a professor, but he was probably a librarian, since Ulysses took his photo outside of Memorial Library.
Sam Sterling is in a hurry as he exits the Historical Society building, loaded down with notebooks, books and fifteen student essays, and he still needs to have lunch. Then he has to go back to teach at the education building, and then office hours, and finally bike home for the play at six. Chaos reigns as someone crashes into him, sending papers and books flying.
Apologizing and helping Sam gather his things, the attractive man offers to buy him lunch. Sam doesn’t have much confidence, and can’t imagine why this man would want to take an awkward archivist to lunch.
Ulysses introduces himself, and they have lunch together, where Sam finds out that Ulysses is a Grad student in the Department of Magic Studies.
Sam himself worked hard and graduated early. Soon to be twenty-five, he’s an archivist and teaches archival methods in the librarianship program. He shows Ulysses his faculty ID, which shows his name to be Dionysus.
They talk and share more about their school histories and duties. Sam is tempted to invite Ulysses to the play, but thinks that Ulysses is just being nice to him.
As Ulysses does research on the Sterling family, it opens the door to a strange attraction between him and Sam. As practitioners disappear and the Dionysus warning becomes more urgent, the two men will have to face the terror of what needs to be done.
Lupton has crafted a classic paranormal, classic historical fiction novel with Dionysus in Wisconsin. It’s clear how much research went into this story, especially into Greek, Welsh and English mythology.
I loved how the story wove in books, movies and music of the time and mentions historical figures from Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, a favorite of mine. I frequently paused to look up the mythology and mythological characters that made this novel so outstanding.
The author vividly describes magical process, spells, sigils, ghosts, demons, and creepy things that are very frightening, and many of the scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat.
I love Sam and Ulysses. They are both so charming and funny, each in their own way. The intimate scenes between them are truly romantic and written perfectly by the author, and they fit this story just right. At times the writing also waxes poetic, which makes the story a wonderful read.
I highly recommend Dionysus In Wisconsin, the first book in the “Wisconsin Gothic” series. This was my first book by E.H. Lupton, and I was impressed. I’m looking forward to the next book Old Time Religion.
The Reviewer
Hi, I’m Maryann, I started life in New York, moved to New Hampshire and in 1965 uprooted again to Sacramento, California. Once I retired I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in 2011 and just moved back to Sacramento in March of 2018. My son, his wife and step-daughter flew out to Florida and we road tripped back so they got to see sights they have never seen. New Orleans and the Grand Canyon were the highlights. Now I am back on the west coast again to stay! From a young age Ialways liked to read.
I remember going to the library and reading the “Doctor Dolittle” books by Hugh Lofting. Much later on became a big fan of the classics, Edgar Alan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and as time went by Agatha Christie, Ray Bradbury and Stephen Kingand many other authors.
My first M/M shifter book I read was written by Jan Irving the “Uncommon Cowboys” series from 2012. She was the first author I ever contacted and sent an email to letting her know how much I liked this series. Sometime along the way I read “Zero to the Bone”by Jane Seville, I think just about everyone has read this book!
As it stands right now I’m really into mysteries, grit, gore and “triggers” don’t bother me. But if a blurb piques my interest I will read the book.
My kindle collection eclectic and over three thousand books and my Audible collection is slowly growing. I have both the kindle and audible apps on my ipod, ipads, and MAC. So there is never an excuse not to be listening or reading.
I joined Goodreads around 2012 and started posting reviews. One day a wonderful lady, Lisa Horan of The Novel Approach, sent me an email to see if I wanted to join her review group. Joining her site was such an eye opener. I got introduce to so many new authors that write for the LGBTQ genre. Needless to say, it was heart breaking when it ended.
But I found a really great site, QRI and it’s right here in Sacramento. Last year at QSAC I actually got to meet Scott Coatsworth, Amy Lane and Jeff Adams.