Alfie Bell is . . . fine. He’s got a six-figure salary, a penthouse in Canary Wharf, the car he swore he’d buy when he was eighteen, and a bunch of fancy London friends.It’s rough, though, going back to South Shields now that they all know he’s a fully paid-up pansy. It’s the last place he’s expecting to pull. But Fen’s gorgeous, with his pink-tipped hair and hipster glasses, full of the sort of … the sort of courage Alfie’s never had. It should be a one-night thing, but Alfie hasn’t met anyone like Fen before.
Except he has. At school, when Alfie was everything he was supposed to be, and Fen was the stubborn little gay boy who wouldn’t keep his head down. And now it’s a proper mess: Fen might have slept with Alfie, but he’ll probably never forgive him, and Fen’s got all this other stuff going on anyway, with his mam and her flower shop and the life he left down south.
Alfie just wants to make it right. But how can he, when all they’ve got in common is the nowhere town they both ran away from.
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I just cannot recommend this series enough. This entire series was just brilliant. I adored everything about it, I think that is why it took me a year to read them, as I wanted to spread them out, I have them all in ebook and audio and have one in paperback soon to add the others. So that is all on that.
Now for the book, it was enemies to lovers/previous bully to lovers. It was done so impeccably well. I loved both Fen and Alfie and just could not get enough of their story. Alfie, the school bully turned hopeless romantic was just wonderful. He grew so much and in just the short amount of time in running into Fen again. He was able to feel so deeply and try to understand what he had put Fen through in school growing up. Now, Alfie is trying to make it right while falling totally in love with Fen in the process. Fen is such a beautiful character and he too grows wildly. He is able to overcome his grief and start living for himself. It is just a beautiful story and I am just so happy Alexis has decided to share it with us. His writing for this series is so well done, I just cannot stress that enough. Cornell Collins on this audio was amazing and I know I will be going back to relisten/relive this story over and over.
The fourth book of the Spires Series, Pansies is slightly different from the previous books. In addition to being a love story, Pansies is a mediation on masculinity and identity. The pace is slower and the novel longer but trust me, it works for this story.
Alfie, the POV character, doesn’t realize how little he knows himself. He returns to the Northern English town he grew up in to attend a best friend’s wedding, where he outs himself in the most public way. Escaping from the wedding, he meets Fen in a bar, after which they share a passionate, unforgettable night together. I don’t want to spoil the story but I’ll just say Fen is someone Alfie once knew in grade school but doesn’t recognize. Alfie has only realized he is gay and possesses rigid beliefs about masculinity that he internalizes from his father and his local culture (one could even say, the entirety of western culture). Within that framework, he practices this form of masculinity exactly as it has been scripted for him, right down to the overachieving, the aversion to anything that smacks of femininity, the meaningless accumulation of wealth and status symbols. What makes Alfie so compelling is the way he is a stand in for so many men in western society.
Fen might be in a bit of a spot in his life but he knows himself. This gives him the certainty of self-knowledge that Alfie lacks, and the resilience to survive the hard moments in his life.
I loved this book because it grappled with some weighty issues. Love is not just a means of salvation, or of finding affinity. It becomes a path to self-realization, especially for Alfie. While the novel is mostly in Alfie’s POV, we get insight in to Fen’s thoughts through letters he addresses to his mother. They’re helpful in understanding how much Fen grows to love Alfie and renders a key decision Alfie makes towards the end all the more gripping – and frustrating.
Pansies is a wonderful entry in the series, a story to savor. It is written in Hall’s signature writing style – gorgeously crafted metaphors that never veer into purple prose and love scenes that are rooted in the characters and their relationship. He does so much in these books of a literary nature – I’d need to write another essay just on his writing style. The HEA is hard-earned, developed through the authentic negotiation of intimacy and trust. Gorgeous read, worth every last star.
Such a beautiful book, one of my favorites. Part of a beautiful series, which can all be read as stand alones. Alexis Hall writes lyrically and romantically, and it just makes you fall in love with the story, the characters and the entire world <3