Review: Key Lime Sky by Al Hess

SiriusB+ Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended Readsadventure romance / autistic character / non binary / SFF / trans woman4 Comments

An alien invasion hits the town of Muddy Gap, but a disgruntled pie aficionado is the only one who seems to remember it…

Denver Bryant’s passion for pie has sent him across Wyoming in search of the best slices. Though he dutifully posts reviews on his blog, he’s never been able to recreate his brief moment of viral popularity, and its trickling income isn’t enough to pay his rent next month.

Driving home from a roadside diner, Denver witnesses a UFO explode directly over his tiny town of Muddy Gap. When he questions his neighbors, it appears that Denver is the only person to have seen anything – or to care that the residents’ strange behavior, as well as a shower of seashell hail, might be evidence of something extraterrestrial. Being both non-binary and autistic, he’s convinced his reputation as the town eccentric is impeding his quest for answers. Frustrated, he documents the bizarre incidents on his failing pie blog, and his online popularity skyrockets. His readers want the truth, spurring him to get to the bottom of things.

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Review:

Dear Al Hess,

I saw the mention of your book on John Scalzi’s Blog and I decided to try it. I am very pleased that I did, for the most part I loved the book. I however think that this blurb not is only too detailed but spoilerish as no other blurb I have read before (not an exaggeration), so what I am going to do is something new, I am putting a third paragraph of this blurb under spoiler tag and highly highly recommend you do not read it, unless the only “mystery” left for you will be the end result. It *literally* summarizes all the plot except the very end in my opinion.

So this book is in essence a SF lite mystery and romance mixed together and if executed right, this is one of my favorite genres combination and I think this book was written well, executed well, I loved Denver’s voice, and I could see Ezra so well despite us being only in Denver’s head for the whole story.

Basically, as the blurb tells you at the beginning of the story, Denver witnesses something that he suspects was an UFO explosion. Only of course no one else either saw it or believes him. The world in the book is “our” world, so of course not every person will believe that strange objects or beings decided to visit us (for the good or bad reasons). Denver thinks that no-one likes xe in town (Denver is ok with any pronouns, but likes xe the best), and thinks that people not believing is because Denver is being Denver. Denver knows that xe saw something though (and curious mind won’t let xe stop) and Denver keeps digging and digging.

There is a guy named Ezra who is the only person who believes Denver for the large part of the story. I thought they were very entertaining and sweet together. I thought that the author did a very good job mixing the romance and mystery/suspense in the story, as the world around them hits the main characters harder and harder, I actually could not wait and looked at the last page and was very happy that I did :). Not only romance was well executed and suspenseful events came to the suitable resolution (for me), I also thought that main character had a very nice character arc.

Highly recommended. B+

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