It’s been a long time since I read Amy Lane. I used to read her a lot, and she’s written some of my favourite books, so I don’t really know why I stopped – not a conscious decision. On today’s menu, we have A Gentle Shove of Human Kindness, and I admit I picked simply because the blurb said Gabriel would be on a seat at Starbucks. Don’t judge how I get my coffee kicks!
Gabriel is an angel who has forgotten why he should bother to save humans so he’s sent to Starbucks to observe and remember why, despite all the shitty things humans do, they’re worth protecting.
Usually, when I read Amy Lane I end up crying. This wasn’t that kind of story. We’re seeing the world through Gabriel as he watches Jamie, a barista with a bright smile, and the shy Ernie, slowly work up to set a time for a date with a bit of angelic interference. It’s sweet, but not much is happening.
Angels? Have you read many books with angels? I have to admit I haven’t read many at all – The Guild Hunter Series, of course, and some occasional other, but they’ve mostly been M/F books. The only M/M books I can think of at the top of my head is Into This River I Drown by T.J. Klune which had me crying buckets.
If you’re up for some angels with your coffee, this is an 18-pages freebie you can get through Amy Lane’s Prolific Works Page.
This short story was originally published in the Dreamspinner Press Anthology ‘Grand Adventures’
Witness the Angel Gabriel.
a.k.a. “Heaven’s biggest prick”
Gabriel has been accused of the crime of hubris–and his sentence is to remember why angels protected humans in the first place. A permanent seat at Starbucks might be Gabriel’s idea of hell, but it’s there that he meets the irrepressible Jamie and wounded Ernie, and realizes that the human race might be worth saving after all.
It just needs a gentle shove of human kindness
Ofelia Grand 
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