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Pansies

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

From the acclaimed author of BOYFRIEND MATERIAL and HUSBAND MATERIAL comes a deeply emotional romance about finding love when (and where) you least expect it.

Alfie Bell is...fine. He's got a six-figure salary, a penthouse, the car he swore he'd buy when he was eighteen, and a bunch of fancy London friends.

It's rough, though, going back home now everyone knows he's a pansy. He thought he'd escaped that old town, and the lie he lived there, years ago. It's the last place he's expecting to meet someone. But Fen's gorgeous, with his pink-tipped hair and hipster glasses and flower shop, full of the sort of courage Alfie's never had. It should be a one-night thing, but Alfie hasn't met anyone like Fen before.

Except he has. At school, when Alfie was everything he was supposed to be, and Fen was the stubborn little gay boy who wouldn't keep his head down—and who, despite their growing connection, will never truly forgive him.

Fen just wants to live his life. Alfie just wants to make things right. But how can he be anything other than another heartbreak waiting to happen, when all they've got in common is the nowhere town they both spent their lives fighting to escape?

This dynamic, emotional LGBTQIA+ romance contains never-before-seen content and exclusive bonus material.

The World of SPIRES:

Glitterland, book 1

Waiting for the Flood, book 2

For Real, book 3

Pansies, book 4

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 31, 2016
      Hall's skilled hand with men's emotional realms comes through in the sweetly optimistic, redemptive third standalone in his Spires contemporary gay romance series (after For Real), in which vulnerability takes center stage and difficult history dances with the glimmer of opportunity. London investment banker Alfie Bell abruptly comes out at his best friend's wedding in the small town of South Shields, where he grew up. He then picks up Fen, a beautiful, bitter man with pink-tipped hair at the local bar, and discovers after their encounter that Fen is actually the boy Alfie bullied all through school. Fen tries to keep Alfie at arm's length as he works through his self-hatred via letters to his late mother, whose flower shop he now runs, while Alfie seeks forgiveness from both Fen and himself as he makes his first attempts to impress someone he's truly interested in. Hall's sex scenes are a heady mix of hot play-by-play, breathy exhilaration, emotional discovery, and endearing awkwardness. The book goes on longer than the plot deserves, but Alfie and Fen are so delightful together that readers probably won't mind. Agent: Courtney Miller-Callihan, Handspun Literary.

    • Kirkus

      November 1, 2024
      A former bully and his childhood victim meet again. Ever since Alfie Bell went south to London, he's not felt quite comfortable "oop north" in South Shields. In fact, he doesn't really feel comfortable anywhere, despite his career successes. Though closeted when he left, he's now out to his friends and family, but still struggles to accept himself in many ways, and can't shake the uncomfortable feeling that he no longer fits in anywhere. When he's home for a wedding, his discomfort drives him to a small bar where he meets a stranger, Fen, who is antagonistic but still wants to go back to Alfie's hotel for a one-night stand. It's not until after their encounter that Alfie realizes he actually does know Fen--they went to school together and, back when Alfie was in the closet, he was one of the boys who'd bullied Fen mercilessly for years. Now, Fen says he just wanted to see "the school bully demonstrating what a good little cocksucker he's grown into." The revelation shocks Alfie out of the life he's settled into, and he finds himself leaving his important job and friends in London to drive his fancy sports car back home and try to apologize so he can see Fen again. Despite his understandable reservations, Fen has always daydreamed about Alfie and is curious enough to see whether he's actually changed, so they begin spending much more time together, leading to some scorching-hot moments as well as many complicated emotions for both to work through. This is the fourth volume in Hall's series of Spires stories, but it can be read as a standalone. Though this is a rerelease of a book Hall self-published in 2018, fans will be thrilled to revisit Fen and Alfie's story, especially as Hall has annotated it throughout, sharing thoughts about the Northeast England setting, his intentions while writing the book (and how he reflects on them now), and how to write a Geordie accent. Though it's likely not for readers who don't care for former-bully-to-lover stories, any others looking for a steamy, emotionally driven contemporary romance will be delighted. A compelling romance worth reading again, or for the first time.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Languages

  • English

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