The relationship between Hugh and Rob builds gently, with them both displaying sweetness and sensitivity to each other’s needs. I was fascinated by the premise, and am determined to seek out some more body-swap novels to read. He’s created a great set up and the details of the 1927 hospital are particularly well evoked. Thomas does well in this fairly lengthy short. The only problem is, Rob isn’t the man Hugh thinks he is, and he’s determined neither to make Hugh think he’s mad with talk of his body- and time-swap, nor take advantage of the crush Hugh has on “Jimmy”.
Here is a man he could really love, unlike his awful boyfriends back in the present day (there is a flashback to his relationship with Perry, the man who was with him when he got shot). When Hugh turns up at Rob’s bedside, obviously distressed, Rob’s heart goes out to him. However, there’s one very important man who seems to worship “Jimmy”, despite him clearly having been a womaniser and a user. It turns out Rob is now “Jimmy”, a large man, and attractive by anyone’s standards. Then, when he realises he’s no longer in the slim, redheaded body he used to inhabit, things get even stranger. It takes Rob a while to recover from his injury, and at first everything around him in the hospital is extremely confusing.
Rob has no idea what is going on, but all of a sudden the fountain he collapsed into when he was shot has disappeared, and everyone surrounding him is dressed in what he assumes to be costume. It’s a swift moving scene with plenty of drama, and before we know it we’re plunged back into the past. The story opens with Rob, our point of view character, getting shot in the present day. Now Robert’s falling in love with Hugh, but how can he explain he isn’t who he appears? How can he get Hugh to love him, and not the man whose body he inhabits? And who shot Jimmy?Ī great idea for a time travel story and a well-researched jaunt into the jazz era. However, a tendency to exposition and overused internal monologue prevented me from falling into the story as deeply as I would have liked.
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