A Funny Thing Happened...

By Josh Lanyon

Amidst the twinkling lights and snow-kissed streets of a quaint, picture-perfect town in the High Sierra, a bookstore owner and former homicide detective are reminded that the greatest mysteries are the ones that lead us to love.

Join Adrien English and Jake Riordan one last time in a short, sweet tale that will warm your heart and remind you that love knows no bounds, especially during the most magical time of the year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Josh Lanyon
• Release date: Dec 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781649310439

Josh Lanyon

Author of nearly ninety titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure, and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON’S work has been translated into eleven languages. Her FBI thriller Fair Game was the first Male/Male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, then the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan’s annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list). The Adrien English series was awarded the All-Time Favorite Couple by the Goodreads M/M Romance Group. In 2019, Fatal Shadows became the first LGBTQ mobile game created by Moments: Choose Your Story.She is an EPIC Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist (twice for Gay Mystery), an Edgar nominee, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads All-Time Favorite M/M Author award.Find other Josh Lanyon titles at www.joshlanyon.comFollow Josh on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

Book preview

Amidst the twinkling lights and snow-kissed streets of a quaint, picture-perfect town in the High Sierra, a bookstore owner and former homicide detective are reminded that the greatest mysteries are the ones that lead us to love.

Join Adrien English and Jake Riordan one last time in a short, sweet tale that will warm your heart and remind you that love knows no bounds, especially during the most magical time of the year.

A Funny Thing Happened…

An Adrien English Christmas Story

Josh Lanyon

Love leads us to ourselves—this is the mystery of love.

Frederick Lenz

Introduction

Warning: this book contains no murders, no mayhem, and no real mystery (barring the endlessly puzzling mystery of why and when we love).

It is, very simply, the final chapter–a coda, if you will—to the long and winding journey so many of you made with Adrien English and Jake Riordan.

Is this the last we will ever see of Adrien and Jake? Highly unlikely. But it is the most we will see of them in any one sitting for the foreseeable future.

A shorter original version of this story appeared in 2020’a Fatal Shadows: The Collector’s Edition.

Ironically, as I was rewriting and expanding that coda, I thought how long ago the (first) pandemic seemed—and the very next day my SO came down with Covid.

So. Funny things happen for sure.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to you and yours from Adrien, Jake, and yours truly.

Whoa, Jake said. I could feel that frown from the front door.

I glanced up from the pages of the glossy fashion magazine Natalie had left on the front desk, and stopped scowling. "Hey. I didn’t hear you come in."

As Jake reached me, I pulled my mask down, and we kissed hello. He smelled like the night, cold and sharp, with a hint of faded aftershave; a peculiarly seductive blend of Mandarin orange and leather. You’d think by now I’d be used to…well, all of it. But the pressure of his mouth was warm against mine, and our lips lingered…lingered… Turns out, love is sticky stuff.

We reluctantly parted—and Jake promptly, gently pulled my mask back up. He pulled his mask up.

I sighed. You know, it’s after-hours. We’re alone now.

He touched the tip of my masked nose. Yep. It’s just you, me, and fifty billion germs.

Clearly, he was forgetting about trigger-happy Natalie and her trusty can of linen-scented Lysol disinfectant.

The agreement we made was I’d continue to work at Cloak and Dagger through the pandemic, but pledged to be extra-diligent and super-vigilant about following all virus protocols. Which I complied with because A – I’m not an idiot, and B – making Jake happy is a priority for me.

I mean, it’s a mask. Try being on a fucking ventilator. Been there, done that, and will do everything in my power to avoid repeating the experience.

"Speaking