Ex Marks the Spot
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
How far would you go to save the first love of your life?Ten years ago on an August night, Steve Ranley crashed his ride into a tree, taking a big part of Oliver Canfield\u2019s soul with him. Time doesn\u2019t heal all wounds—in Oliver\u2019s case, it opens them to bleed anew. In the decade since, Oliver and Bradley MacIntyre have built a successful life together, but their relationship has always been haunted by Steve\u2019s death. During that lost summer, Oliver and Steve shared love in secret, and as the dark anniversary looms, Oliver unravels. Seeing ghosts, he is drawn to the malevolent oak that still bears the scars from Steve\u2019s impact.On August 30, at the exact instant Steve died, Oliver is thrust back counterclockwise in time to that other summer, before Steve\u2019s accident. Using his second chance, Oliver vows to alter the events leading to the tragedy. He reunites with Steve, only history doesn\u2019t follow the exact course as he remembers it, and circumstances lead to him meeting Bradley years before he was meant to. His corrupting of established time could save the first love of his life while dooming the sec
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Norris explores grief, regret, and obsession—with a time-travel twist—in his romantic debut (after short story collection The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse). Gardener Oliver Canfield has spent a decade mourning his first love, Steve Ranley, whose death has cast a shadow over Oliver's relationship with his husband, Bradley. When Oliver crashes his car into the same oak tree that claimed Steve's life at age 18, he travels back in time to the days before Steve's death, giving him the chance to prevent Steve from dying and change the course of his own life. But there's a price to be paid for changing history, and Oliver must decide whether he wants to sacrifice his present to indulge the past. Norris does a good job exploring the fraught, hormonal confusion of queer adolescence, but the story lacks the stakes and urgency necessary to let the emotional beats land, and it never fully takes advantage of its own inventive premise. This will appeal to fans of time-travel stories centered on the ethical implications of altering timelines, even if it doesn't quite manage to explore those questions in full.
