Another Healing

Title:  Another Healing

Author:  M. Raiya

Publisher:  Dreamspinner Press

Length:  216 pages

Rating:  A List

Up All Night Satisfaction

Blurb:  When James first discovers he can heal, he thinks he has a rare and miraculous gift. But when he learns the price, it feels more like a curse. He falls passionately and completely in love with every person, male or female, he heals. But only until he heals again, when he becomes hotly infatuated with the next person. He doesn’t dare express feelings he knows are only transitory or hold out hope anyone will love him back under those conditions.

One night, he meets Ambient, the victim of a car accident, dying, his neck broken. James heals him despite knowing what is in store. He can’t resist Ambient, and to his amazement, Ambient returns his feelings. Thinking Ambient has broken the curse, James heals the next injured person he comes across. To his joy, and confusion, he does not fall in love anew. If anything, his feelings toward Ambient intensify. Awash with the certainty that somehow, he and Ambient are meant for each other, they set out to learn the truth about James’s strange power.

Review:  I kind of loved this book. Even more than I thought I would. There is a sweet and intense love story that is both complicated and enhanced by the mystery and danger that surrounds both of the men as they come together. I loved that I didn’t have everything figured out immediately. All in all this is a pretty cool book.

James is so very alone when he finds Ambient. His “gift” has left him confused and afraid and he has isolated himself. He doesn’t understand why he can do what he does, but he knows that nothing good could come from people discovering and misusing him or his abilities. I sympathized with James, with his strength and integrity. He refused to judge anyone and had his own code that he lived by. He needed to heal, he wanted to help people, he had to keep moving and try to stay under the radar. It was a complicated and lonely life.

The “curse” would have been heartbreaking and maddening. To feel so much for people that don’t return the feelings, sometimes don’t even remember you. Being inundated with so much false emotion and know that it will happen again and again and that the only alternative is to allow people to suffer and sometimes even die. How would you know what was real? How could you try to have a relationship?

Then he meets Ambient and everything changes. Not only does Ambient return James’ feelings, but James finally learns what real love is. James loves Ambient so good and so hard and so deep and so sweet, and gets loved back just as much. They accept each other completely.

“There were so many kinds of healing. This kind let him know that everything was okay, that they were okay, the he was okay. Maybe James could heal bodies, but Ambient could heal James’s whole world.”

Ambient is a sweetheart. He comes from a very close and loving family. He gets swept up into this magical love affair, falling fast and hard, and finds himself over his head and in danger. I loved that he was such an awesome big brother and good son. The way that Ambient embraced everything about James and had such faith in him, their love, and what they could do together was beautiful.

“Okay,” Ambient said more gently. “I’m not sorry I met you, and I’m not sorry I’m involved with you, and I’m not sorry I’m caught up in this. I’m a little afraid, and a lot freaked, but I’m not sorry. You get the difference?”

Ambient is much stronger than he at first seems, never weak, but maybe naive and young, sheltered and innocent. He has to find a lot in himself. He has to grow and adapt and accept and change, everything. And then he has to do it all over again.

These guys are adorable together. They are young and very hot for one another. While the very essence of James power creates an “insta-love” type of situation between them it fits the story perfectly and that love is tested and strengthened as they fight to solve the mysteries and survive whatever seems to be after them as they delve into the past and discover the cause of James’ power. They are both so loving and considerate towards each other.

It was amazing how both men always chose positive. They both had things in their pasts that could have hardened them and instead of becoming jaded they remained kind. They are put through the wringer more than once (things get very dark and painful for them), and while they defended themselves they always tried to give their enemies another chance. That hesitation both cost them and saved them. They could have turned on each other and blamed, instead they drew closer together and comforted each other. Their bond was everything and in the end it both saves them and heals them in ways that James’ power cannot.

I loved the twists and turns that the story took. They end up in a completely different place than they expect and things get much worse than either of them could have predicted. There is an element of world building that creates a more complex story. While they live in the world that we know, the threads of magic (and other things that I can’t tell you about) create a slightly altered reality that I enjoyed.

This story zipped by and I was left craving more when it was over. These boys and their love are beautiful. I was pulled into their journey and ached with them. A highly recommended read full of magic and love.

*****Trigger Warning With Spoilers – There are scenes of torture. They aren’t super graphic (not gory) or drawn out (it’s short and it’s all in one part of the story) and they make sense in the story and are essential to the ending.*****

Reviewed by Nina