I read this book because it was chosen for me in a Bookholics Anonymous reading challenge. I’ve gone to read Amy Lane on a number of occasions and I’ve balked every time. This time my hand was forced, and I’m glad it was. I enjoyed Chase in Shadows, by and large. So a big shout out to Talya for the pick.

Chase is living with his girlfriend, Mercy, they are young. Mercy works. Chase is at college. He is 20 turning 21. He needs money to pay for rent, save for a house, buy nice things for Mercy; to realise an ideal. He gets told Johnnies, a gay-for-pay porn site, is hiring. Voila! He’s in. Good money, he gets to have sex with other gay men, but, hang on, he’s a straight, baseball playing, engineer studying jock. He’s  s t r a I g h t. However, we discover that ‘straight Chase’ is not, he is repressed, gay Chase, he’s just too terrified to admit it openly. We discover that Chase has problems, none of which he can admit openly. We learn about Chase’s dysfunctional upbringing. We watch Chase’s life become one big, long, messy, complication.  This book is angst-ridden, but I like angst.  It is also sexy, I like sexy too.

The writing –   

The writing was clever. Particularly when Amy Lane contrasted the reality of Chase’s everyday life against the intense emotions he felt when he could be with Tommy, in Tommy’s arms. How he felt about Mercy, with Mercy –

“The foods great Merce….” Worth coming home to?” she asked grinning, like she knew the answer. God help me, I’d rather be eating Chinese takeout with Tommy. 

“Did she know you were gay?” “No.” “It doesn’t matter,” Chase said. “She didn’t want to leave you anyway. My mom didn’t even know and she left.” Chase……” “Maybe if someone knows all of me, that’s just too much fucked up to stand.” “Chase…..” “Show’s on, Tommy.” Chase wouldn’t let anymore slip out.

Affairs are powerful things, you live outside of the everyday, you can bypass reality – reality as in dealing with major trauma and family dysfunction. That was well constructed here. If you really look into Chase’s characterization there were solidly written, quantifiable reasons for Chase’s deceit and ongoing behaviour. I’ll give you this Amy Lane, you knew how to perfectly pull back on Mercy’s character, to make her seem nice yet she almost seemed like the ‘other woman,’ not Tommy being the ‘other man.’ It was smart witing, making the necessary character’s appear sympathetic. Personally, I liked Mercy, I liked Tommy and I understood Chase.

Chase, in all honesty, was a complex character. He was a difficult character to like, you could feel sorry for him, you could dislike him, you could even hate the deceit that he used so easily and so well. And he did. And he knew it. He is quite simply one of the most self-loathing characters I’ve read about. To let reality in was too overwhelming for Chase. Having shut down years ago, and developed great avoidance skills, has taught Chase how to step it up into lies, manipulation and deceit. Not because he’s a bad person, rather it’s how he’s survived. Survival is the key here, because even before, but especially after his mother’s suicide, that’s all Chase did. He survived on fantasies of what the perfect life was, he idealised his best friend’s mother, that she was the perfect mother, because she was nice to him, made him cookies. He idealised his girlfriend Mercy, she was nice, helped him with homework, cooked for him. He built her up as the way to create the perfect white-picket-fence-life. Mercy was a mother substitute in every sense of the word for Chase, he didn’t know that consciously, but, she was. He idealised porn as the relief he felt he needed, when in fact it just covered up more of his pain, it was a release, yes, it resulted in some positives, in the long run, but it was still another band-aid.

Tommy is a 23 year old, fairly uncomplicated, yet intuitive man, who has been working in the porn industry, at Johnnies, for 3 years. He wanted, needed, Chase from his first meeting. There is one issue with Tommy, exacerbated by the industry he’s in, and his affair with Chase; but it’s dealt with fairly quickly. He knew Chase was in a relationship, knew Chase ‘zoned out’, knew Chase had some problems; but wanted him anyway.  Yes, Tommy let Chase get away with things but he’s desperately in love. He’s prepared to overlook much. They click, they have common interests, they like one another, Chase says the most to Tommy, before fear always stops him short. Tommy is a very likeable character, apart from the fact he’s sleeping with someone else’s partner. Here I’ll come back to the clever writing. For all intents and purposes you could/should dislike Tommy, see him as a home-wrecker, but he comes off as the man-done-wrong. He comes off as sweet – he loves his mum and his mum’s cat, he gets a kitten, and a turtle, aww. He also gets the rough end of the pineapple on more than one occasion, and, when he’s sick and needs Chase, Chase walks out, in true self-flagellating Chase style.

“What did he say?”

But Mercy was nothing if not forgiving, she still had him over, after Chase set his father straight, and made him apologise. Perhaps she was too nice – is there really such a thing? – but she was written more and more off-page as the book progressed, as Chase was away working (being with Tommy), was also  imploding, and crisis filled up more space. Mercy is constantly lied to, cheated on and taken for a ride. It’s not pretty and I felt for her. Chase truly loved her but as a mother substitute and a friend.  How things progressed to her being told about Chase was terrible; seriously, poor Mercy. Okay, the thing she does near the end is silly but, they’re all so young.  As for handing something over so readily, yes, I must be cryptic, that didn’t go to her character, but it did progress the book, so….

I have some niggles –

First of all, I’m not too keen on young guys as the MC’s in books. I don’t mind one young(er) guy but I’m not good with two. Here we have two, so I did struggle with that, it’s a personal thing, and remember this is a challenge book. The dialogue at times was young, I get the character’s age, but –

And –

The Christmas analogies bugged me. I got them, they just went too far.

 It was too long. I would have been happier if it could have been cut back.

I liked Chase in Shadow. It was a thought provoking and entertaining read. I’m glad I’ve now read an Amy Lane book, it was about time. I’m going to finish the review with a quote from Tommy and a much healthier Chase –