{"id":11878,"date":"2019-04-26T20:46:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T00:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=11878"},"modified":"2022-08-28T18:18:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T22:18:48","slug":"the-haunted-heart-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11878","title":{"rendered":"The Haunted Heart: Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Haunted Heart: Winter<\/a><\/em> (2013) Josh Lanyon<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This isn’t really supernatural; it’s a ghost story. But I didn’t have a better category for it.<\/p>\n

Flynn Ambrose is living in the house he inherited from his uncle on Pitch Pine Lane while he sorts through the antiques and other items collected over a lifetime.<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cFrom the way you were chortling to yourself, I was expecting a mummy case at least. Maybe an iron maiden.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s probably one in the back. I know there\u2019s a coffin in there somewhere because I helped the old man carry it in.\u201d Kirk\u2019s dark gaze held mockery. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2026have no response to that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was on the eccentric side, your uncle.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He also inherited the downstairs border, a veteran turned playwright.<\/p>\n

The problem is that Flynn isn’t well. The sudden death of his lover–who had also been his childhood best friend–sent him into a spiral that put him in the hospital, and even now his parents worry constantly about him.<\/p>\n

The nice thing about heavy sweaters was you could wear them a long time without having to wash them, but still. There was a limit. There were a lot of limits, actually. Since grooming was one of those things people watched for, I made sure to clean beneath my fingernails and behind my ears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a LOT of grief in this story.<\/p>\n

Flynn’s loss is overwhelming–but for good reasons. He’s a quiet and gentle young man, and he and Alan had been best friends since they were kids, so he had never loved anyone else before. <\/p>\n

It’s difficult to read his grief, but it’s also not an unreasonable grief, since he’d never loved and lost before. That’s not to say that grief gets easier with experience; only that you learn it’s survivable. <\/p>\n

This was published in 2013, and says book one, but there isn’t a second book available. However, Josh Lanyon’s website says there is a sequel coming in 2019. So we’ll see. <\/p>\n

But honestly, I’m okay because the book ended cleanly. No, it’s not a romance HEA, but Flynn is clearly in a better place at the end of the story, and although we don’t know Kirk’s past, his time in Afghanistan and PTSD are something that are comprehensible without details.<\/p>\n

Mind you, I’d LIKE more books, but I’m not angry at the lack of a sequel.<\/p>\n

I really like Josh Lanyon’s writing, and this was a lovely story. There is boinking, but not much; the story is very much centered on discovering who is haunting the mirror and how Flynn and Kirk can un-haunt it.<\/p>\n

Publisher: JustJoshin Publications
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Haunted Heart: Winter (2013) Josh Lanyon This isn’t really supernatural; it’s a ghost story. But I didn’t have a better category for it. Flynn Ambrose is living in the house he inherited from his uncle on Pitch Pine Lane while he sorts through the antiques and other items collected over a lifetime. I said, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,207,8,148,26,56,16],"tags":[50,211,213,177,544],"class_list":["post-11878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-mental-health-rep","category-mystery","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","category-supernatural","tag-boinking","tag-depression","tag-grief","tag-josh-lanyon","tag-mm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-35A","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19899,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/19899","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":0},"title":"A Ghost of a Chance","author":"Michelle","date":"March 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A Ghost of a Chance (2012) Josh Lanyon Rhys Davies is writing a book on haunted houses while teaching a course in parapsychology at UCLA. After a rough break up, he ends up traveling to the home of Oliver de la Motte to study the abandoned--and supposedly haunted--mansion on his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eBook"","block_context":{"text":"eBook","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/ebook"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Ghost of a Chance","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/A-Ghost-of-a-Chance.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14273,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/14273","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":1},"title":"Seance on a Summer’s Night","author":"Michelle","date":"May 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Seance on a Summer's Night (2018) Josh Lanyon \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to be open-minded about the possibility of the supernatural. It\u2019s another to bundle the Psychic Hotline with other phone and Internet services. I couldn\u2019t quite understand the words. It took me a second or two to identify them as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Seance on a Summers Night","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Seance-on-a-Summers-Night.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12797,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/12797","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":2},"title":"Secret at Skull House","author":"Michelle","date":"April 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Secret at Skull House (2020) Josh Lanyon (Secrets and Scrabble) This second mystery finds Ellery still working to keep his inherited book store open, but at least the local theater group is putting on a production of one of his screen plays. Then the news breaks: someone has purchased Skull\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Secret at Skull House","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Secret-at-Skull-House.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19594,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/19594","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":3},"title":"Stranger in the House","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Stranger in the House (2019) Josh Lanyon I didn't have this book, so I was surprised to realize I'd read it before. It was in Footsteps in the Dark: An M\/M Mystery Romance Anthology which had stories from multiple authors I very much enjoy. Miles has inherited a house--a mansion,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eBook"","block_context":{"text":"eBook","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/ebook"},"img":{"alt_text":"Stranger in the House","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Stranger-in-the-House.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21492,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21492","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":4},"title":"Hide and Seek","author":"Michelle","date":"January 30, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Hide and Seek (2022) Josh Lanyon Andy was already headed home--to the small Maine town where his great uncle has his small antique store, but when he arrives, things are made even worse: his uncle was in the hospital after being badly beaten during a break in. It makes Andy's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hide and Seek","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Hide-and-Seek.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11752,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11752","url_meta":{"origin":11878,"position":5},"title":"The Ghost Had an Early Check-Out","author":"Michelle","date":"March 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ghost Had an Early Check-Out (2018) Josh Lanyon Nick and Perry have moved to L.A. where Nick works as a PI and Perry is going to art school. It's while Nick is out on a case and Perry is sketching when Perry meets Horace Daly, who is seemingly being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/The-Ghost-Had-an-Early-Check-Out.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}