Genre: Gay Fantasy
Length: Novel
SAM HAVERSFORD is a great and powerful wizard! Okay, not really. He’s just a wizard’s apprentice. But he is powerful! And one day he’ll be King’s Wizard to the heir apparent, Prince Justin. The only problem? Prince Justin is kind of a dick, and is marrying the super dreamy Ryan Foxheart… the same super dreamy Ryan Foxheart that Sam’s had a crush on since forever. Too bad Justin’s a dick. Too bad Ryan swore an oath to serve him.
Under normal circumstances, Sam wouldn’t be too upset that Justin then gets kidnapped by a ferocious and oddly pervy dragon. But he’s the heir apparent…. To cleanse his system of this hopeless situation, and to perhaps relieve the guilt he feels for crushing on the future king’s beau, Sam goes on an epic journey to save Justin. Unfortunately Ryan insists on coming along. This won’t end badly. Nope!
This book was so much fun, I was laughing the entire time. (For the record, my full on cackle is utterly terrifying and ridiculous sounding, akin to a dying dinosaur.) I don’t normally take iphotos of passages as I read, but I couldn’t help it! I had to preserve the funnies for eternity. The humor reminded me a bit of Terry Pratchett, which was a delight for me, and even the world sort of struck me as that of Discworld, in that the setting is medieval fantasy, but the language is modern. So, if you love contemporary humor, I think you’ll love this one. The fantasy aspects added to the hilarity, but they didn’t overwhelm the novel.
Sam is a quirky but benevolent character. He chooses to see his life as rather charmed, even though he faces constant challenges. His head is a bit in the clouds, but for how powerful he is, he is rather humble about it. Plus there’s always the chance that his rogue magic will corrupt him and he’ll turn dark and murder millions of people. Yeah, there’s always that. His crush on Ryan is at first pitiable, but how he processes it is oftentimes heartwarming, and—in the cases where he’s being rather dense—frustrating. Every bit of plot and dialog added to the perfect evolution of poor Sam’s love. It grew to define him.
Besides a humbly powerful wizard and a ferocious and oddly perverted dragon, there’s a power bottom unicorn, a put-out fairy king, a not-as-dumb-as-you-think-he-is half-giant, and plenty of other heartfelt characters. If you’re into a fun gay fantasy, then you’ll be into this. I’m just getting started with Klune’s work, but so far I have been incredibly impressed. I’ll be reading more. Cheers.
Buy Links: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon.
B. A. Brock is a reviewer for DSP and QSF. He enjoys reading, writing, running, family and food, and fills his life with bent bunk. He especially loves to discuss LGBTQ+ literature. His website is http://www.babrockbooks.com. You can find him on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/BABrockBooks.
Dreamspinner Press–Where Dreams Come True… International publishers of quality gay romantic fiction since 2007. http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
DSP Publications–Off the Beaten Path. Worth the Journey. http://www.dsppublications.com
Harmony Ink Press–LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction. http://www.harmonyinkpress.com
My favorite pic of T. J. Klune:
