Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
A bestselling gay novelist returns to his childhood home for Hanukkah, still determined to stay in the closet rather than face further denigration from his family. A heavy snowstorm and unexpected company add to the tension, especially since one of the guests is the famed and fabulous, popular, Dr. Ethan Rosenberg, the high school crush who broke Jonah's heart.

BOOK REVIEW:
Prolific and popular gay novelist Jonah Levinson had long ago relocated from Hartford, Connecticut to Seattle to live life on his own, out of the closet and happily at peace. Avoiding holidays with his folks was a necessity, as a lifetime of feeling he had been judged and always found wanting made the thought of even a short visit home miserable, especially since he believes none of the family knows he's gay ~ or published.

Finally acceding to a Hanukkah visit to Hartford, Jonah is dismayed to discover he and other family members are snowed in, without power and with only a few supplies, along with a dreaded guest: the fabulous Dr. Ethan Rosenberg, sinecure of Jonah's mother's eyes, and Jonah's former high school crush, who "outed" Jonah in the school locker room and caused untold misery and heartbreak. Ethan seems to be flirtatious but Jonah is both attracted-terribly so-and cynical.

Holiday Outing is an utterly delightful examination of romance, lust, and familial heartbreak in the context of a Jewish household at Hanukkah. As tensions rise and a valuable item is stolen, characters are drawn out and suspense builds in company with Jonah's own ambivalence about Ethan. Author Astrid Amara does an excellent job of portraying Jonah and Ethan, along with the secondary characters, as rounded individuals with perfections and flaws. No one is flat or one-dimensional and each becomes familiar to the reader during the story: familiar, often likeable, and always deserving of our empathy. Holiday Outing is a story not to be missed and will leave its lingering traces in the readers' minds for quite some time to come.

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