OMG y'all, my Alexis Hall era continues with another BANGER. I was pretty much in love with Pansies from the first chapter. The premise is so interesting - a guy goes back to his hometown and unknowingly has a one night stand (and falls head over heels in love) with the guy he bullied in high school. While the romance is complicated and sweet, what's most interesting about this book is the discourse on queerness, especially figuring out your sexuality later in life. The writing is impeccable, the banter is spot-on, and the spice is excellent - this is a must-read.

Oh my goodness, Alfie is such an amazing character. On the one hand, he's amazing and so perfect for Finn - he's romantic, sweet, and tries really hard to listen to what Finn wants. But he struggles so much with who he was in the past and the way he pictures himself in the present. He KNOWS he's gay, but his internalized homophobia makes so much of his daily life a struggle. He desperately wants Finn, and he wants to show him that he does, but he's still so stuck on norms about masculinity and heteronormativity that sometimes he cannot express himself in especially healthy ways. And oh gosh, poor Finn. The guy has REALLY been through a lot - I absolutely cannot blame him for his actions at the beginning of the book. I'm still a little surprised he kept agreeing to take Alfie back after the things he did. His grief is so visceral - but I kind of think that it's possible that, even though his life is falling apart, being in that place in his life is also what allowed him to forgive Alfie (and keep forgiving him). And y'all, the CHEMISTRY between Alfie and Finn - it's so RAW and real and so freaking hot. This series has some pretty hot spice (this is NOT closed door), and Pansies is no different (GAH, the car scene? Phew).

At this point, I'm really not even sure if I can pick a favorite Spires book - they are all so different and amazing! Pansies is set in South Shields, which is apparently where Alexis Hall grew up, and I loved learning about yet another English town that I wouldn't even know existed otherwise. I'm just so freaking impressed and absolutely desperate for more!

3.25

I don't know if I have an author that's more hit or miss for me than Alexis Hall. When I love his books, I adore them, but if I don't love them then I can't stand them. Here, we finally have a middle of the road book for me. I struggled with the beginning because I didn't realize this was going to be a second chance/former bully romance. Which I guess shame on me because it literally says that in the description, but I'm a simple human: I see an Alexis Hall book and I have to try it.

As it is, I think this is my second favorite book in this series, following [book:Glitterland|60754391]. Once I got over the childhood bully thing, I really liked both Alfie and Fen as main characters. As is typical of Alexis Hall characters, they are messy and dealing with hardships in their lives but the way they come together is quite lovely. I didn't love the third act breakup here, because I don't love third act breakups on principle, but it was blessedly short and did actually make sense.

While this is the last of the previously independently published books in this companion series to be republished by Sourcebooks, Hall is contracted to publish two more and I am intrigued to see where he goes next.

Swoon. It was such a pleasure to read this again (now with annotations). I just love so much about this story, but basically ALL THE FEELS.

Is the third-act breakup predictable and perhaps unnecessary? A little. But it also kind of works.

I rarely bother to highlight books, but there were some lines/moments in this I just had to call out:

"And there, in that secret, private darkness, where nobody could see, and nobody would ever know, he absolutely didn't cry."

"That loving something wasn't the same as owning it."

"'And maybe we could do this all the time, until y'know, we're not here anymore. Cos...well...that's what love means to me. But it doesn't mean anything at all really, without you.'"

Bottom line: highly recommended! I'm not posting on Goodreads yet, because the new edition isn't showing up there yet.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Spice: 🌶️.5
Alfie and Fen are such a romantic pair and very sweet with each other. I thought it was a little difficult to read the accents at times and felt like I missed some of the dialogue/story based on that. However, I still loved the book.

I just adore this series by Alexis Hall and this book in particular is a gem! I wasn’t sure if former bully Alfie Bell could be redeemed, but this book exceeded my expectations. I very much loved Alfie’s arc in this book. The portrayal of grief in this book was also quite beautiful. I also loved how this book shows us parents of adult children.

I love this book entirely and with my whole heart.

As Hall used to do when he started writing, he captured not only the love between the characters, but also for the place they grew up in. A place that was horrible to both of them in very different ways, but that still had their hearts. I miss that in his writing now, it makes me sad that he's left it behind. I love how they fall for each other despite all the reasons they were unlikely too. I also love that they love themselves more because they found each other.

CW: all the internalized homophobia. Plus a fair amount of general homophobia.

OMG this book. This whole series, really. It’s all so freaking good. The writing is just beautiful, and not really like anything else Alexis Hall has written. There’s funny bits and geeky/nostalgic bits (because it wouldn’t be an AJH book without those), but on the whole this series is just so beautiful.

So, anyhoo… Pansies is set in South Shields, which is in Northern England, on the Eastern coast. The way the town is described makes it seem like a small town, but it’s really not. I googled it and I’m pretty sure it’s large enough to count as a city. It’s hard for me to pick a favourite in this series, but I think I feel the most connection with this one, I can see myself in Alfie (in general terms, not specifics). The city I grew up in is a similar size to South Shields, very working class, very conservative, and it has that small town feel to it. For a city of 80k people, I was constantly running in to people I knew, before I got married and changed my last name everyone knew who my family was because my grandfather owns a masonry business that has built all but 1 of the major buildings in the city. And from the time I was a teenager all I wanted to do was leave. And I did! And while I don’t think I could ever move back there, I have occasionally felt the pull of being somewhere so familiar, where all of my family is. Also with growing up in a conservative, small-town-feeling city of 80k, there’s also that total submersion in heteronormativity. Like, when Fen asks Alfie why it took him so long to figure out he’s gay, and Alfie tells him it’s because it was never a possibility for him. You just assume you’re the same as everyone else because everyone else assumes that you’re the same as them, and there are so few examples of anything else. There were so many times while I was reading this that I felt so sad for Alfie. That he grew up in a homophobic family, in a homophobic town, that he has so much internalized homophobia, it just kind of broke my heart. Ugh…

One of nuances in this book that I adore, is how Alfie’s accent gets thicker as the book goes along. I mean, it’s just what happens when you go home and are surrounded with that. I think it also shows how he’s becoming more himself when he’s back in South Shields, not trying to be someone he’s not in London.

I feel like I could go on and on about this book. And I’ve barely even said anything about Fen, who is just lovely.
The Spires series is just so incredibly good. I know they’re still quite a ways off, but I absolutely CANNOT WAIT for books 5 and 6. I need more Spires in my life and heart!

I have read the original of this book many times and was able to pick up on the slight edits that have been made to this rerelease and they are all for the better. Some are very minor, others are a bit more substantial, but they just add to the wonderfulness that is this book.

2,5⭐️
Alfie Bell está... bien. Tiene un salario de seis cifras, un ático, el coche que juró que compraría cuando tenía dieciocho años y un montón de amigos de lujo de Londres. Sin embargo, es difícil volver a casa ahora que todo el mundo sabe que es un pensamiento. Pensó que había escapado de ese casco antiguo y de la mentira que vivía allí, hace años. Es el último lugar en el que espera conocer a alguien. Pero Fen es precioso, con su pelo de punta rosa, sus gafas hipster y una floristería, llena del tipo de coraje que Alfie nunca ha tenido. Debería ser una cosa de una noche, pero Alfie no ha conocido a nadie como Fen antes. Excepto que lo ha hecho. En la escuela, cuando Alfie era todo lo que se suponía que debía ser, y Fen era el pequeño niño gay obstinado que no mantenía la cabeza baja, y que, a pesar de su creciente conexión, nunca lo perdonará de verdad. Fen solo quiere vivir su vida. Alfie solo quiere hacer las cosas bien. Pero, ¿cómo puede ser otra cosa que no sea otro desamor a la espera de que suceda, cuando todo lo que tienen en común es la ciudad en la que ambos pasaron sus vidas luchando para escapar?





La razón de la calificación fue porque abandoné el libro y pues no sé si tiene un buen final.


Abandone la lectura por la forma en como se manejo el bullying, la relación víctima-victimario me dejó mucho que desear.

Alfie and Fen have a one night stand. They have a deep attraction to each other... They are both trying to fit in a little town that will never forgive them... They also have a complicated past with each other.

Re-released with extra material. It's a terrific book. Very emotional and filled with angst. Lots of sensitive topics dealt with beautifully. Really enjoy it. An unforgetable book.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

I LOVED THIS BOOK!
Alexis Hall never fails! This story felt so real! The characters in this book are so well rounded! Great characters. I loved Aldi’s and Fens story!! I think both characters trauma was dealth with in a really sensitive and beautiful way. Probably one of my favorite reads this summer!!

This HEA Alfie and Fen get to is not the easiest journey for either of them, but so worth it in the end!
Their story is so well written you can feel the the tension, but also the love between these two. It’s a sad, and harsh story at times, but also so beautiful and sweet at other times.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!
Alexis Hall never fails to disappoint me and this might just have been my favorite book of their's I've read.
The story felt vunerable and realistic while also being funny at times.
Something I always love about Alexis hall is that the characters are all so well rounded that I feel like I know exactly who they are.
The only thing I would have loved to have seen would have been Alfie opening up to Fen about his parents, but I do understand why they chose not to include that in the book.
I think both chracter's trauma was dealth with in a really sensitive and beautiful way.

I was honestly captivated by this book from the moment I picked it up. Super hard to put down!

I'm sure I will be thinking of this book for a long time.

4.25 stars

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Alexis Hall knows how to write romance with deeply flawed characters!! Alfie is not really a likeable character, at times he’s mean and stuck up and he’s definitely got a lot of internalized homophobia. But he’s also so human that it’s kind of hard to hate him. He makes a lot of mistakes but throughout the book you can see how being with fen is forcing him to grow and learn and become better. The journey these characters go on is an absolute emotional roller coaster but it feels so real and raw and heartfelt. Hall shows the messy side of love and how flawed people are still deserving of love

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca for the ARC!

Alfie returns to his home town of South Shields (North of England) for his best friends' wedding. An investment banker, big, muscled and tattooed he looks the typical alpha Northern male, but he's also gay, something that his working class father is having trouble dealing with.

Overwhelmed by the contrast between his glamorous, superficial, wealthy life in London and the grittiness of his home town Alfie leaves the wedding and goes into a typical pub, only to see a delicate man wearing a pink jumper and hipster glasses with pink tips to his hair drinking a glass of rose wine. What starts off as a one-night stand turns strange when Alfie's lover turns out to be a boy he mercilessly bullied at school. He might have bullied Fen back then, but at least Fen knows who he is and is comfortable with himself whereas Alfie has no idea how to reconcile being gay with his inner voice and his ingrained beliefs.

In fact, this book is all about reconciliation for Alfie. Reconciling his career in the South with his home in the North, his relationships with his family and friends, being gay with his instincts, what he likes with what he thinks he should like.

I loved Alfie and I loved Fen, I loved their tentative relationship which is very much two steps forward and one step back, I loved everything about this romance.

I read this nearly four years ago, probably just about when I first discovered Alexis' writing. They have recently rereleased the Spires books with new covers and so I was eagerly looking out for this to drop on NetGalley. Despite me mis-recalling the original book, my review above remains 100% accurate for the updated version. I still love Alfie and Fen and I love their romance. I must reread the previous version at some point. And what is the book I've read where the big tattooed guy is the florist I wonder?

After all these years I still think this and Glitterland are my favourites.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

A beautiful exploration of figuring out how to live authentically amid the pressures of the world. The new edition adds author annotations and expands some scenes—I was really touched by some of the changes made to the end of Chapter 23 especially.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC. All opinions my own.

I don’t have the words to express how much I adore this book. As a queer person who grew up in a conservative town I related to hard to Alfie's struggles to figure out how to come to terms with his identity as an adult. I was wary when I saw the premise of this book initially but Alexis Hall handles the past bullying with care, never letting Alfie off the hook for his past misbehavior. He allows both Fen and Alfie to be complex characters with complicated feelings and reactions as they process the changes in their lives (Alfie coming to terms with being gay and Fen dealing with the loss of his mom as well as his school bully not being a completely crap human being). The yearning that both of these characters feel for each other and for a home is so palpable my heart is still aching in the best way from all those feelings. Pansies is a book that tackles a lot of big issues - grief, social class differences, masculinity, unlearning heteronormativity and homophobia and so much more. There's so much to unpack in this story and I will keep coming back to it because the way these characters struggle is so deeply relatable. Every reread gives me something new to think about (there have been 5 so far) as I come to it in different points in my queer journey. Ultimately this is a book about the freedom and joy you can find when you are brave enough to be yourself and that will never not be important to read about.

This, like all the other books in the Spires series, is heartbreakingly beautiful. I'm honestly speechless in trying to write this review because all I have going through my head is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It could have something to do with the fact that I stayed up to midnight to finish this and then was awake before my 6am alarm this morning with why my brain can't cough up more words.

Also, one of my favourite things about the revamp of this series is the annotations from Alexis in each book. This has given a really cool insight, not only to the characters and their stories but also into the creative mind of the amazing Alexis themselves.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and have given an honest review.