I love almost everything I have read by Alexis Hall, and even his books that I don't love I still like very much. Something Extraordinary falls into the love, love, love category.
SPOILERS
Hall specializes in romances about people who do not fall into traditional categories, not only across the gender spectrum but across the personality spectrum. Something Extraordinary is the third book in Hall's Regency romance trilogy about a pair of obnoxious twins and their friends and lovers. I reviewed the first book, Something Fabulous, here. The heroine of Something Extraordinary is Arabella Tarleton, the twin who is certain (maybe correctly) that she is incapable of feeling romantic love. The hero was a minor character in Something Fabulous who is a gay man. Although I don't remember him clearly from the first book, I do have a vague sense that Hall has retconned him quite a bit. He obviously had to find a way to change his name from the ridiculous Harley Comewithers, which could not belong to any hero, so Arabella christens him Rufus. In Something Extraordinary he is in his late 20's, in prime shape, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and more or less an orphan who was raised by his mean aunt.
The book begins with Arabella kidnapping a very drunk Rufus the night before his wedding to a woman his aunt chose for him, and attempting to elope with him to Gretna Green. Rufus had been willing to go along with the wedding because he does not feel he deserves happiness, and to placate his aunt. He is less willing to wed Arabella, but when he sobers up he realizes that if he doesn't marry her her reputation will be ruined. Along the road to Gretna Green Arabella is shot, they both make some friends and meet some excellent lovers, and they come to love each other in a mostly non-romantic, pretty much entirely non-sexual way. After the wedding, they both need to find a way to convince themselves and each other that that is enough -- that their relationship as best friends and platonic bedmates, with other bedmates as suits each of their fancies -- is not just enough, it's great.
Like all of Hall's book, this one is talky, with characters apt to go off on philosophical tangents or give discourses on consent at any moment. This is part of its charm. But the bulk of its charm is the philosophy that any and every kind of love is good enough, that no one is required to fit into a conventional relationship, and that we all have a redemption arc if we choose to follow it.
I truly think that at this moment Alexis Hall is my all-time favorite romance writer.
Bonus reviews of the Spires series: Glitterland, Waiting for the Flood, and For Real
Glitterland is one of Hall's earliest books, and it was originally self-published. Both of these show. The plot is a bit more simplistic than his most recent work, and the book needs a good copy editor. I'm not quite sure how I feel about love interest Darian's crazy accent. He is from Essex, a place I don't know that I have ever heard of but seems to be somewhat like an English version of Jersey Shore (as presented in the reality TV show of that name, not the actual place, which is quaint, beautiful, expensive beach town after quaint, beautiful, expensive beach town). The relentless presentation of Darian's accent didn't really bother me, but I felt like it should have.
Glitterland's hero is Ash, who describes himself as mentally ill -- his diagnoses are manic depression and clinical anxiety, and these are no joke. Ash has to be careful to follow a regimen of medication and self-control, and is prone to anxiety attacks whether or not he slips up. But Ash's real problem is that he uses his very real mental illness to act like a complete jerk. In some ways the plot is reminiscent of the fantasy series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, which follows the adventures of Thomas, a man from our world who suffers from leprosy and is deposited in a fantasy world. He has to learn to disregard all of his training about how to keep himself healthy, but is also, well, a complete jerk. Like Thomas, Ash has to figure out who he is and who he wants to be aside from his illness.
Unlike in Hall's later books, he does not develop Ash's love interest and foil, Darian, which makes him a somewhat flat character.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
Waiting for the Flood is part of the same series as Glitterland, I guess because they both are set in university towns? Oxford, I think. Waiting for the Flood was fine. It's a romance B, a Hall romance C. It consists of two novellas. The first one is about Edwin,who has had trouble getting over his ex-boyfriend Marius. The second one is about Marius.
I didn't love either of these characters. Edwin is supposed to be sweet, but just came across as much, much younger than his early 30's. His love story with Adam seemed rushed, to the point of creepy and potentially love-bombing.
Marius is unpleasant, and not in the whiny but adorable way of many of Hall's characters. He's just kind of a jerk, and it's hard to understand what Edwin ever saw in him. He is an artist who has not created any art for a while (I won't say why; that would be a spoiler, but also it doesn't really matter). He also has a relatively-well-managed eating disorder that Hall doesn't really do much with. I also don't really understand his life since he left Edwin and moved out of their house. He seems to have been couch surfing for the last three years? Where does he keep his stuff? What is he living off of? His love story with Leo is okay, although as with Edwin I have trouble seeing what Leo sees in him.
One of the joys about reading these older Hall books is to see how much he has developed as a writer. As I said, these books are romance Bs. Compared to some of Hall's more recent books, such as Something Extraordinary, which really are extraordinary -- well, it should give hope to every writer that there are better things ahead.
For most of the time that I was reading For Real I was thinking that I would write a review along the lines of: An overriding theme of Hall's work is his characters learning to accept themselves (often through the love of another good man), no matter what their career interests, kinky desires, sexual orientation, or place on the gender spectrum. The only rule is do no harm, unless the person you are doing harm to wants it. For Real took this a step too far for me, to an age gap romance. Hero Toby is 18 and hero Laurie (a nickname for Laurance which disappointingly is not based off of Laurie in Little Women, but instead a character is some erudite work I have never heard of) is about twice that age. Hall presents Toby as being inexperienced (because he is young), and flailing about his life goals (because he is young), but basically a fully formed adult. Nuh uh. Hall probably wrote this book before the flurry of activism about how young violent criminals should not receive life sentences because your brain, especially your judgment, is not fully formed until you are in your late 20's. I could not buy Toby as a character. When I was 19 I actually had a sense that I didn't have the best judgment. But what I didn't understand at that age is that people can't read my mind. I assumed that if I felt something, the person I felt it towards knew what I was feeling whether or not I expressed it and had some kind of parallel or maybe opposite feeling. The idea that I had to actually communicate was just insulting. (These days, much of the kink in my smutty stories revolves around communication during sex.) Toby has the opposite problem: He's screaming his love to Laurie and Laurie doesn't want to hear it. Until he does.
And then there's my other problem with age gap romances, which I wrote about here: Life has stages. Laurie needs to be having kids now or he will lose the chance forever. Toby is not in that stage. Yes, I understand that a lot of people don't want kids, but in your late 30's you need to sit down with yourself and think that through, because it's now or never.
So that's along the lines of the review I thought I was going to write. Until I came to the add-on short story at the end, about a minor character in For Real who rapes a student. Like, there is no getting around this. Leigh is an Oxford professor wandering around a college courtyard in the middle of the night. His 18 year old student, Baron, happens upon him. Baron has a crush on Leigh. Leigh takes him up to his office, shames him into drinking after he says he doesn't want to, seduces him, tries to kick him out after Leigh comes, and then Baron turns the tables on him and gets all dominant and masturbates on him. This story would not be out of place in the sadly now defunct BDSM Library, which published many non-consent stories (including mine, thank you). But, Alexis, you could have warned me. What were you thinking with this story? I thought I knew you.
