Tribute Act: A Porthkennack Contemporary

Chambers’s painfully self-conscious second entry in Riptide’s shared-universe Porthkennack series (after A Gathering Storm) mixes romance with family ties. Nathan, owner-operator of an ice cream parlor, is intensely attracted to musician Mack, the estranged son of his stepfather, former pop star Derek. The quasi-incestuous vibe is not the only potential source of reader discomfort: Nathan, as narrator, persistently body-shames himself. Mack is very much into Nathan, too, at least when Nathan is just a stranger in a club. But when Mack walks into the family home as a potential liver donor for their unwell half-sister, “it’s complicated” becomes the guys’ permanent status. Their medical odyssey and complex feelings about their relationships with Derek have a soundtrack: a Christmas song purportedly written by Derek, which makes the book’s postholiday release a little odd. But fans of Chambers’s gray-sky British settings and flat, working-class dialogue paired with volcanic feeling just below the surface won’t be disappointed. (Jan.)