Title: Sharing Tomorrow
Author: Michael Barnette
Length: 4,400 words (17 pdf pages)
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m paranormal
Rating: C+
Blurb:
Fae-born Kyle has been alone for decades; everyone he once knew is gone. The need to be around others, even humans, has grown so great he can no longer remain alone. Then he enters a bar and he someone who seems to know what he is, a man named Anluan.
But Anluan is more than a man and on the cusp of New Year’s they discover they don’t have to be alone anymore as the magic of faerie weaves a spell around them to bring them a very Happy New Year indeed.
Review:
This was a sweet gentle story, but I’m afraid I got a bit lost in the mythology. It starts with Kyle standing on the shore as a big storm is approaching, depressed at the thought that he truly is the last of his kind. He’s been searching for decades. He is mystified by many of the modern things around him, but goes to a local bar, where bartender Anluan immediately recognizes him as fae and says as much. Once the bar closes, they tell each other more about themselves, and then head back to Anluan’s apartment.
I’m not much of an aficionado of the fae mythology. I understood vaguely what Kyle was, I do know some of the basic creatures of the mythology, merpeople, selkies, etc. but I tend to get lost in the Unseelie, Seelie, etc. politics/mythology. So when the two men were explaining their complicated heritage (neither being purebred and thus stuck in the human realm), I wasn’t quite sure of the significance of it all. However those who adore that mythology will probably find it perfectly clear and make total sense. Perhaps an area upon which I need to educate myself.
Once back at the apartment, they realize they are mates and proceed to have sex, which made me snicker a bit. It was, I think, a rather typical gay relationship problem perhaps, two strangers meet, one says he wants to top, the other says I thought I’d top, but I’ve never, neither have I. Ooops. Compromise time. 
But they worked it out of course, it’s a romance.
While this is a New Year’s story and takes place New Year’s Eve, that really doesn’t play into the plot so you could read it anytime and not feel it’s out of time. I liked both characters and I thought Kyle and his feelings of being all alone in the world and the last of his kind were well-drawn. You wanted to give him a hug. I would have loved to see him exploring the new world more. His first interactions with a flush toilet or a TV or microwave would have been fun. That tends to be one of my things, I love the details of a character out of their time, but it is a short and ends on a suitable romantic HEA, of two lonely men who found each other.
