J.M. Snyder: Trin

Trin by J.M. Synder
From: Aspen Mountain Press

He pushes past her as he races down the hall. The image burns in his mind-he closes his eyes and still sees the gunner’s slack cheeks and open mouth, his eyelids half-shut in lust. A hand stroked Gerrick’s thigh, another curved around his flat ass, a man knelt before him with the gunner’s fingers plunged deep into his thick hair.

The hard length suckled between red lips, Garrick in him, fucking the bounder’s hot pink mouth as the shower poured down between them. The bounder, Trin recognized his eyes when he turned to see why it was all of a sudden cold behind him.

Gerrick’s eyes widen slightly and the gunner sighed his name, “Trin.”

No explanations, no hurried excuses-he didn’t even push the bounder away, just kept thrusting into the softness between his lips and uttered his name. Trin. For the first time he was getting off he said Trin’s name, and it wasn’t even on him.

Behind him Gerrick calls out but Trin’s beyond hearing. He runs down the hall, head tucked between shaking shoulders, chin pressed to his chest. He tells himself he won’t cry, even as the first hot tears cut through the sweat on his cheeks.

J.M. Snyder’s story Trin is set in a post apocalyptic world where Devlars (Dragon like creatures) attack from the sky. Only the wild and warrior like gunners protect the people who populate the string of towns known as outposts. Trin, a mechanic, lives in what seems to be the local truck stop with his older brother Blain and Blain’s girlfriend Alissa. Blain used to be a gunner who ran with a man known as Gerrick whom Trin has a well known long time crush on.

Then one day Gerrick rides in.

It is hard to call Trin a gay romance. It follows all the romantic requirements. You have two men, one who is not so secretly in love with the older warrior. They do get around to having sex and there damn well is conflict that keeps them apart. Well, if you read the excerpt above then you know it is not so much conflict as betrayal, on both sides eventually. They get a type of HEA but…

The real stomach punch for me came at the end. It is not so much an HEA as a coming to terms and accepting responsibility with what you have left after the illusions shatter. I know that sounds vague but just read this thing yourself. I consider it very a stunning bit of writing.

This book will never rest easily on my favorites shelf, the really powerful ones never do. This one will sit in the back and be brought out to show someone just how effective a little eBook story can be. I myself recall being this incredibly young, of walking in and finding a man I had grown to love in bed with another. I still remember the chaos of that moment very clearly as if it happened yesterday. These characters and their reactions in the story rang true till the very end.

This is not a fairytale and there is no Prince Charming, nor is there a damsel in distress. Not really, neither character can be seen as blameless or very smart. As Morpheus told us “Welcome to the Desert of the Real.”

Grade A writing, Grade A story telling, for a book that contains some very jagged bitter pills.

Tags: Aspen Mountain Press, Gay, Grade A, J. M. Snyder, Sci-fi Romance