The truth is harder to hide when someone sharp starts poking around.
Grant Eastbrook hit the ground crawling after his wife kicked him out. Six months later, in Seattle without a job or a place to live, he escapes to the woods of nearby Vashon Island to consider his options. When he’s found sleeping outdoors by a cheerful man who seems bent on irritating him to death, Grant’s plans to … Grant’s plans to resuscitate his life take a peculiar turn.
Oliver Rossi knows how to keep his fears at bay. He’s had years of practice. As a local eccentric and artist, he works from his funky home in the deep woods, where he thinks he has everything he needs. Then he rescues an angry man from a rainy ditch and discovers a present worth fighting the past for.
Amid the buzz of high summer, unwelcome attraction blooms on a playing field of barbs, defenses, and secrets.
Standalone romance novel. HEA.
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An author I follow and respect has been raving about Alice Archer for a while now so when I had the to opportunity to read her latest novel, The Infinite Onion, I didn’t hesitate to read it. I’m so glad I did. This novel is the sort of absorbing meditation on loss, hurt, grief, nature, and love that took me away from my current worries and left me hoping and content by the end of my reading.
From the synopsis you can see that one character, Grant, finds himself in the unenviable position of no job and no home and a whole lot time to consider what he’ll do next. Oliver, the other main character in this novel, has every comfort imaginable but isn’t really living a life that would allow him to reach its fullest potential. In the unlikeliest way, they find each other and lots of interesting things happen that make me love these two sometimes disgruntled, sometimes snarky and prickly men. Let’s dig into them a little bit more, shall we?
Grant was at times a petulant frustrating mess but the more I got to know him, the more I appreciated his journey. His love of nature, his ease with the kids, his desire to help and provide a space for people to figure things out were just some of the things that I found to be endearing. Many people in his position might not have taken on the challenges that Oliver provided and really dig into them, but he did and it just made his ending so so so good. And Oliver? Oliver was a quirky, sometimes controlling, somewhat privileged mess who had so many more layers than I initially suspected. His journey was equally interesting and enjoyable to read. His artistry made me want to make my own art (too bad my talent leveled out at 1st grade) and deep dive into all the artsy things I have. His huge heart and desire to help those around him made him a perfect match for Grant. These two and their antagonistic natures were such a treat to read.
Needless to say, you can count me in as a new fan of Alice Archer. I’m eager to read her debut novel and am crossing my fingers that one day she’ll write a short update on Grant and Oliver because I can’t seem to stop thinking about them!
I would rate this 4.5 stars.
Grant is so unhappy being a worker drone in Seattle, he burns his whole life down six months after his divorce. His defenses are so high, the only one he seems to lower them for is his nephew Kai. When he ends up camping rough on Vashon Island to try and figure out his life, he meets an artist named Oliver who challenges him. Sparks fly as Oliver likes irritating Grant with a strange arrangement meant to get him back on his feet. Oliver has demons of his own and stripping Grant bare exposes his own defense mechanisms. Both of them will need to battle their own and each other’s walls if they are to have a chance at living happily ever after.
Grant ignores unpleasant realities. Yet, he has a big heart for those who accept him as he is instead of trying to change him. The tweens (his nephew Kai and his friends Jill, Clover, Penelope, and Abelino) are there as the catalysts to show who he is behind his anger, fear, and desperation to find himself for himself, instead of always bending to fit the will of others. Some might say, where are their parents? But, I grew up on an island and ran wild for hours, all day and night in the summer and no one knew where I was or who I was with, so this made me think of my own adventures. How wonderful they have someone to treat them like the individual people they are. One of Grant’s lessons is that sometimes order and boundaries are needed, that their are times they are appropriate and should be respected; another is that if the rules he lives by don’t serve him, it’s time to make up new rules.
Oliver flouts the idea that you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. I’m glad Oliver had a come to Jesus moment about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but it didn’t make him more likeable for me at that moment. With his artistic nature, his fantasies often overcome or overwrite his reality…but people who are lonely or traumatized often live in their head. His circle (Talia, Clementine, Freddy) is only people who will respect his boundaries and not expect more from him. Freddie, Oliver’s friend with benefits for seventeen years, is a deceptively complex look into Oliver’s world as he has ordered it. I liked Oliver the most when his art therapy ends up saving him from his avoidance techniques.
Being creatives, this is a wild ride with characters that explore the absurdity of their inner worlds. Memories, nostalgia, how the past shapes our reality, and thus the present, is what is battled here. This is what it looks like when people take a self inventory. So many stories focus on violence or sexual abuse as the only thing that wounds people; you will not find that here. Having said that, I was not enamored with the stalking for love trope. In the end, these two wounded men fit like puzzle pieces–their strengths and weaknesses merging to create a stronger whole. My mind was a swirl of grief and enchantment, painted with vivid art and inner imagery. The ending left me touched, breathless, and happy knowing in all the world Grant and Oliver found the one special person who gets them, crazy and all.
Wow, this one was heavy!
I admit that I didn’t like Oliver at the beginning. All he did, in a matter of speaking, was kick Grant when he was at his lowest: hungry, homeless and dirty. The fact that, in hindsight, it was obviously the push Grant has needed to reevaluate his life, doesn’t take away the unnecessary added distress it has caused him.
Honestly, that’s all Oliver and Grant have done throughout the book: push each other out their comfort zones and challenge their boundaries. Simply put, they played mind games, one trying to gain the upper hand on the other, and only managing to make themselves feel more alone, lost and fragile.
That, I think, was the beauty of this story. Their games allowed their layers to show, in all their flawed, amazing complexity. It was fascinating to watch…and bittersweet. I felt Grant and Oliver’s strength, underlying the sweet, the desperate and sad, and I really hoped for their healing, aside from whether or not their relationship evolved to romance or not. They definitely put me through the wringer. Because of the way their feelings and thoughts were all over the place, it was ME that ended up being an emotional mess.
I might contest some of the things that happened in The Infinite Onion, like the kids traipsing around the woods, unsupervised and in the company of an unknown, strange adult. But it wouldn’t of been the same without them, because they were a huge part of the story, written in a sensitive and charming way. Each sweet and troubled, bringing joy, laughter and lightness into the uncertainty of the rest of the book.
The Infinite Onion is complicated, sweet, messy, fun, a moving reading experience that I really enjoyed and definitely recommend to others.
Rarely does a story take hold of me so quickly and completely. I was lost to the engaging character of Grant within the first few pages! I found The Infinite Onion by Alice Archer to be a wholly singular and completely unique read – gripping and consuming!
Grant and Oliver are beautifully created men – both full of flaws and broken in many ways. Yet, each satiates the other’s hunger for something undefinable. The psychological flavour of the writing in this book is highly satisfying and most profound. I am wowed by the mature approach to sensitive topics. And the lack of sweetness and fluff provided me with a palate-cleanser of a read.
The development of The Infinite Onion is a genuine uncovering of souls and gives a true feeling of journeying with the characters’ growth. The slow unraveling of the plot is like smelling the most delicious casserole cooking: you know it needs to take time to develop the flavours, and the wait will be worth it in the end, yet you get ravenous while you’re waiting for each mouthful!
The many layers of each main character are sublime and intricate. The pace of delivery is perfection with digestible bites of the plot coming regularly enough to salivate over but not too much at once to overwhelm.
There are some heavy themes covered in this book but it is done so delicately and so in tune with the entire plot that it doesn’t make the story melancholy or jarring. This story doesn’t feel heavy as you read it – yet the complete satisfaction as you unravel the story line has a sense of epic-ness to it when you turn the last page. I am truly in awe of Alice Archer’s writing in The Infinite Onion and she has found a new fan in this reader.
“We intersected, Oliver and I. Poked each other with our sharpness. Pierced and stung each other. Invade and evade. Lie and spy. A flick of the pen and our two onions became a loop of infinity, a mess of swirls with mass and spin and hidden depths, an endless intrigue.”
Alice Archer’s prose, her elegant way with words and her imaginative storytelling brought The Infinite Onion to life. The story is set on Vashon Island and it becomes its own character, the beauty she was able to evoke in my mind set the stage for Oliver, Grant and the Tweens. I enjoyed peeling back the layers of these characters and at times it felt nearly fantastical. Oliver and Grant’s push and pull to restore wellness to the other was comical, witty, sharp and often frustrating; these two loved to hate each other. However, that was what brought them closer and charged their chemistry. In their constant push of the other, they realized what needing fixing within themselves.
“Our answers, the answers with the power to mend our breaks, lay deeper, way down in the hurt at the original wound, where neither of us wanted to go.”
Oliver and Grant’s hardships weren’t the heart of this story but the way they got to the heart of each other was. The cast of characters that helped bring these two back to life were some of my favorite parts of The Infinite Onion. We are not an island…we need others to heal. These characters reached into one another and pulled the hurt out in order to let the mending begin.
“Connection isn’t a cold poke to the center with a dagger, but a gentle peel with a warm hand over time.”
This is my first Alice Archer book but certainly won’t be my last. I’ve had Everyday History on my kindle for quite sometime, I’ll be bumping it up now.
ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
Once I started on Grant and Oliver’s adventure, I could not put it down. Alice Archer has a way to tell a story that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go until you finish it. Her descriptions of places, people and situations is so vivid sort of like Oliver’s home and Grant’s tent. You could picture both equally in your mind when you were reading. This story about two men who had to find and fight with each other to heal the wounds from their past was absolutely beautiful. The story flowed seamlessly and took you on a journey about self-discovery and finding love along the way.