Review - Cold Snap by Sam Clover

Although only 20 years old, Iddy has already lived on the streets for several years. He ran away from home when his parents decided he was not the kind of child they expected and tried to have him institutionalized. Iddy has learned to survive, but it's not safe on the streets right now. The weather has turned extremely cold, and someone, or something, is murdering homeless people. Not just killing them but tearing them apart. Iddy knows from bitter experience that shelters are not safe places for a still-pretty young gay man, so he tries to find a place to sleep in what he thinks is an abandoned building. It turns out the building isn't deserted, but rather than ending up dead, Iddy wakes up on a park bench on the other side of town with no idea how he got there. Off-duty police officer Ben finds Iddy and tries to take care of him. The young man is attracted to the older man but isn't sure if the feeling is mutual. In trying to figure out what happened, Iddy meets Nathan, a very large and seemingly very scary angry man whom Iddy is nonetheless drawn to.

“Cold Snap” is a rather old-fashioned monster story, plain and simple. We're back to the most basic elements of a good gothic horror tale. Of course, nobody wants to believe there really is a monster, especially when the only witness is a homeless person. That's monster flicks 101. The story does occasionally even poke fun at movie clichés.

Iddy is a fascinating character. He seems like a really sweet young man that gets treated badly. Once we get his full story, I strongly suspect he would be classified as neurodivergent, if not autistic. He definitely sees and reacts to the world very differently from most people.

The romance angle of the story is also different. On the one hand, there's nice, safe Ben, a police officer with two ex-wives and a son but who swings every which way. Then there's dangerous and probably even deadly Nathan, a man who exudes anger and violence. The choice may seem like a no-brainer, but that's where Iddy's different way of seeing the world comes into play. You won't know his choice for sure until the very end.

“Cold Snap” is available from Smashwords and Amazon (commissionable link).