Brief Encounters

Title: Chrysalis
Author: Emily Gould
Length: 15,000 words, 36 pages
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: m/m contemporary romance
Rating: B+

Blurb:
Ever the victim of friendship, Luke seeks out rugby player and fellow student Josh with the intent of asking him out on behalf of a friend. In a moment of panic, he accidentally asks Josh to go out with him instead. Fully expecting to be punched by Josh and his fellow jocks, Luke is dumbfounded when Josh instead says yes—leaving Luke with absolutely no idea what to do, besides run away to panic elsewhere and try to figure out what to do about his unexpected date.

Review:
University student Luke is cursed with almost crippling shyness which he tries to hide behind an aloof emo attitude. When a female friend of his asks Luke to approach rugby player Josh on her behalf, Luke panics and asks Josh out for himself. He’s amazed when Josh agrees and as he’s more than a little scared of Josh, worries how he can get out of the situation.

The start of this short was just delightful. The story is told from the first person point of view of Luke and the author has managed to perfectly capture the mind of someone whose shyness means he finds it difficult to communicate effectively. Luke’s sheer panic when he realises he’s somehow got himself involved with Josh, coupled with a first few dates which screamed awkward as Josh tries to find something they both can do together. Luke’s inability to talk to Josh leads to lots of moments where I wondered how they were ever going to make the relationship work. Somehow though they muddle through and it was sweet and a little funny in places to read about their slightly painful progress. Like many stories from this publisher, the sex scenes are behind closed doors. I didn’t mind that because we are shown how affected Luke is by them. In particular the change from him being in total fear of Josh’s size and bulk to finding his size a comfort left me with a warm feeling

The book isn’t just about Luke and Josh though. Quite a lot of time is spent showing how Luke interacts with his friends. These scenes were amusing especially in the conflicting emotions that Luke feels towards his friends. One minute he likes them, then he remembers why they are annoying when they say or do something he doesn’t agree with. It all added to my sympathies with Luke and I found that I liked Luke a great deal.

Any niggles I have are about the generic setting. It think it’s supposed to be set in Britain because Josh plays rugby and they both go to university, not College. However, just occasionally American words slip into the story like ‘ass’ or ‘apartment’ which muddied the setting a little and I wish a more specific setting had been mentioned. I also thought that the story lost focus a little towards the end.

That wasn’t enough to ruin what is a rather charming and sweet romance between a pair of seemingly ill-matched men and I highly recommend this story to those who like their heroes to be a bit shy and lacking in self-esteem.

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