18TH THROUGH 20TH CENTURIES, AMERICANA

I LOVE THIS BOOK!  Kit

WHISTLING IN THE DARK

Tamara Allen

Reviewed by Christopher T. Moss

Sutton’s heart has been broken, and it seems like his luck is broken too.  Unwilling to go home to Kansas with his tail between his legs, he finds a job at a little diner in New York City and meets Jack, the owner of a curiosity shop across the street.  Jack has a revolutionary idea, to broadcast music from the shop over the newfangled radio airwaves.  And guess what?  Sutton is a concert pianist with a love for ragtime and popular music as well.  Can love be far behind for these two survivors of the First World War?

The is a lot going on here.  Living up to family expectations.  Dealing with loss.  Shell shock. Mob violence.  Homophobia.  And all is handled with the utmost warmth, love, and skill by author Tamara Allen.  Sutton is a delightful mix of shy and impish.  Jack is both a will of the wisp and deeply troubled.    The supporting cast of mob toughs, loyal family retainers, others struggling through the years immediately after The  Great War… and a terrific look at the clandestine world of homosexual men and women in 1920’s Manhattan.

Allen is simply a phenomenon.  She manages to get to know the era in any one of her historical novels and paints a picture of it that is accurate and also gives some hope for the lives of the gay men she portrays.  I have said it before, Allen’s characters are as real as any I have read.  And you will never ever forget a single one of them.