A Strong and Sudden Thaw by R W Day
The Blurb:
The Ice fell upon the world nearly a hundred years ago, and if civilization didn’t rightly collapse, it surely staggered and fell ill a while. In the small town of Moline, Virginia, folks struggle to survive, relying on hybrid seed sent by the faraway Department of Reintroduction and Agriculture and their own faith in God and hard work. But when a mated pair of dragons starts hunting the countryside, stealing sheep, and attacking children, the townsfolk quickly learn that they don’t have the weapons or the skills to fight off such predators.
David Anderson is a farmer’s son who has explored the world through books. When he meets the new healer in town, Callan Landers, he doesn’t quite know what to make of the strange warmth stealing over him. It’s not until he surprises Callan with another man – and both men are promptly arrested for sodomy – that David finally realizes the truth about his own feelings.
When David and Callan stumble over a secret in a nearby abandoned town, their personal problems fade before government politics and corruption that threaten lives. It seems the dragons aren’t the worst dangers facing Moline.
Dislikes/likes (gotta finish on a high note):
Dislike~ The plot was a little contrived with bad things getting relatively easy fixes.
Like~ I am a huge fan of post-apocalyptic speculative fiction. Even better, this story has a frontier theme to it and… da, da, da, dum… government conspiracies and corruption… mwahahaha!… what more can a lover of this genre ask for? Nothing I tells ya!
Dislike~ The main characters were, especially the hero, babies. This did worry me a little, but I quickly got into the frontier groove where folk did marry young, etc.
Like~ Great coming of age story with one of the best ‘coming out’ to parent/s chats I’ve ever read.
So, what I think:
If you like post-apocalyptic speculative fiction with m/m romance thrown in, then you should enjoy this.
I will definitely read more work by this author and hope there is a sequel in the pipeline for A Strong and Sudden Thaw.
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‘Tasting’ is my version of a mini-review where I talk a (very) little about what I liked and disliked about a book as well as who I think the story will appeal to.
Kris + Books = Good. *Sometimes*. 
What a great idea for a short review.Sounds like an interesting read. Which publisher is it from?
Thanks Jen.It’s from Lethe Press; a gay and lesbian publisher, and is the second I’ve read from them. Both have been outside the norm and focused on the plot/story rather than the romance.As far as I can tell, they sell their ebooks exclusively through All Romance Ebooks.
I liked this one too! Not much one for the whole farming and post apocalyptic thing, but it really appealed to me. I checked out a few others from Lethe but not sure there was much there that grabbed me. A few were on All Romance, but have not seen many reviews out there.
It was a terrific coming of age story that will ring true with readers no matter what the setting, don’t you reckon??The only other I’ve read from Lethe was *ducking off to quickly look it up* Secret Matter. I really enjoyed the premise of this, but the technical description of some of the sci fi stuff was hard core and I ended up skipping most of these sections.
Cool. Will have a look, but am being a bit fussy about buying at the moment. Such a tight wad. ;p