Brief Encounters

Title: Ame
Author: Missouri Dalton
Length: 3,900 words (16 pdf pages)
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal horror
Rating: C+

Blurb:
Takashi Matsumoto has spent his entire life in Tokyo. He’s seen terrible things working for the yakuza, but when an encounter with something straight out of folklore leaves him nearly dead he has to revise everything he thought he knew.

After he recovers, he runs into an old flame, Daisuke. Can Takashi have a relationship knowing what he does? Or will his past catch up to both of them?

Review:

I’ve determined that I quite enjoy stories with Japanese paranormal creatures and this is no exception. Takashi has one last assassination job and the yakuza have promised that his debt is paid. He’s waiting on a woman and when she arrives, he’s in for a surprise. She is not just a woman, she is some kind of two mouthed creature whose hair resembles Medusa, and she ends up slitting his throat. However he doesn’t die, he’s rescued by an unknown supernatural creature and is told in exchange for his life he must kill the woman. He’s quite happy to do so.

While recovering, he meets Daisuke who he had a thing with in high school and is now in university studying medicine. They quickly fall back into old habits for that evening, ending up in bed, but Takashi knows there is no future for them. He’s then approached by the mystery woman who saved his life and given a sword with which to battle the woman who tried to kill him, and a method to find her. However before he can do her in, she gets in a good swipe with a knife and he nearly dies again, although ends up in Daisuke’s hospital.

I loved the whole atmosphere of this story. Dark, wet, cold, filthy back streets of Tokyo, danger and grit of the organized crime life, combined with the Japanese creatures. You aren’t given a lot of detail about the creature who attacked him, nor the one who rescued him and sadly the ending left me searching for the electronic next page. What? How can it just end with that teaser from Daisuke? There is much more to this story and I was rather annoyed that it just ended abruptly. I’m presuming the author has more in store, I sincerely hope so, but I also hope it’s not doled out to me in 3,000 word sound bites. I think there is great potential here for a very interesting world and the relationship between Daisuke and Takashi with their banter would lend itself to a story with much more detail about the creatures and the world they inhabit.

So if you find the Japanese culture interesting and don’t mind that this is less of a romance than a bit of a paranormal horror tale, it’s well written and interesting, I’m afraid I marked it down slightly for leaving me feel a bit cheated at the end when I was left hanging with nothing really resolved or explained.