The Tourist [Kindle Edition]

This book takes point-of-view and turns it on its head! The story is narrated by the tourist, Ace--a spirit who can vacation inside the minds and bodies of living people, and who uses this ability to treat himself to man on man sex. He ends up lingering with a couple a lot longer than he normally does, and touching on each of their minds...and then finding himself embroiled in the rockier aspects of their relationship, which turn out to be a lot more serious than Ace originally suspected.

I love the concept, and I'm particularly drawn to Dan, the burlier, blue collar half of the couple Ace inhabits. The sex scenes were crazy-hot, needy, and delicious with tension. The bar setting where Ricky works was well done; it felt like a real business to me and not the fantasy bar trope of so many m/m fictions. But what took this book to an entirely new level for me was the deft writing in the fluidity of the point-of-view.

"I" could mean Ace, it could mean whoever Ace was inhabiting, but in varying proportions it was some of each, because Ace's presence ebbed and flowed almost like lucidity in a dream might ebb and flow for a dreamer. I absolutely loved this aspect, and I loved that the author was bold enough to do this and not overexplain what she was doing and who was speaking and what percentage was Ace and what percentage was the host...because I always had a gut feeling of who "I" was at any point.

I highly recommend this story for its bold use of point-of-view and overall hotness!

I can't believe a short story like this could be so packed with feelings and events.

Ace is a spirit who's been traveling from person to person since when he was killed. He possesses bodies for fun and sex, until he gets tired of the person he's possessing and he jumps to another one. When he enters Dan's body, he's enthralled by the feelings he experiments especially toward Ricky, Dan's lover. Their relationship makes him curious and instead of going away as usual after the satisfying sex, he stays with Dan awhile, fascinated by Ricky, until he decides to jump into Ricky to understand more about his history and personality.

Ace is always more conscious than his hosts, it's like he's floating and his host's life is the water that makes him float. Sometimes he lets himself be carried away by his hosts, sometimes he makes himself go slowly under, sometimes he dives in them abruptly and he dissolves in them. The writing is really amazing, because the transition between Ace and his host is always seamless. I was fascinated by the way Ace melted with his hosts and how the jumping between two people that love each other affected him, making him lose the borders of his own self.

This is also the reason why the story was so rich even if it was short. Everything that happens is essential to the plot, we can see all the point of views, sometimes two at the same time, we can really participate in the life of the protagonists, because Ace sees everything, neither Dan nor Ricky can hide something from him and he becomes the means by which they take a hold of their life.

The personality of the characters are very interesting but I think in the end it's Ace that remains behind our reach, a true spirit, impossible to grab and define and probably to understand.

Galley received via NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher.

This is a sweet little tale of a wandering ghost who stumbles upon a floundering relationship. There was a hint of BDSM gone wrong in Ricky's past but nothing too confronting.

I wanted to like this book but I found it too shallow to truly satisfy. It had potential to be rich & erotic but stayed on the fluffy side of the line. This was a pleasant but easily forgotten read.

Originally posted on Goodreads.com