A middle-aged gay man pieces his life back together in a romance set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

Thirty-five-year-old New Yorker Gary Gaines’ longtime boyfriend and partner Becker died of a heart attack three years ago, in 1985, and he’s still reeling from the loss. Then he meets a handsome, 22-year-old waiter named Rick, and they begin a torrid, often tumultuous, love affair. In some ways, this is a familiar story: Gary is a jaded urbanite, haunted by the deaths of his friends from AIDS, while Rick is a transplant from the Midwest—“A little town called St. Trier, Minnesota”—and an aspiring singer who fled to the city to realize his dreams. The novel plays out as a clash of generations, exploring a queer relationship following one man who came of age before HIV and another who came of age after its emergence. Ringel impresses with his nuanced depiction of this generational divide; sexual tension combines with jealousy as Rick desires everything that Gary had and lost. After Gary has his own HIV–related scare and loses his job writing reports at a nameless World Trade Center office, he leaves New York, bound for his parents’ home near Tampa Bay, Florida. This adventure lends the novel its dreamy title; when Rick, too, arrives in Florida to visit Gary, the two embark on a quixotic road trip across the state to bury the past and welcome the future. In this novel’s finest hours—often at night, during caustic exchanges between Rick and Gary—it feels like a brilliant stage play, as the verbal sparring smartly highlights queer culture and generational differences. However, the work is far less adept at tackling race-related issues, which it does via relatively flat conversations involving two characters of Japanese descent: Gary’s brother-in-law, Gil Sukigawa, and a new acquaintance, Keiko Miyama. For the most part, though, this is a solid trip that readers won’t regret taking.

A rich, character-driven foray into a harrowing time.

American soldier Tommy Flowers deals with his unexpected attraction to English Pvt. David Pearson and the horrors of World War I in this debut historical novel.

In June 1918, Flowers, newly arrived in France, follows Pearson from a tavern, apologizing for his fellow American soldiers’ anti-British remarks. The young men, both around 18, take shelter from rain in a stable. They hold each other for warmth, then report to their units in the morning. Tommy keeps seeking out his new friend and also befriends Jamie Colbeck, an older Australian assigned to American forces. He soon begins soldier duties in the trenches. Later, David stalks off when Jamie, who’s bitter about British bungling at Gallipoli, speculates how David’s soldier brothers really died in the war. Tommy again follows David, dodging dogs and a swooping airplane, and is drawn to kiss him. Still later, while helping Jamie clean up the tavern following a soldiers’ scuffle, Tommy and Nicole, niece of the proprietress, both virgins, run off to have sex, which displeases Jamie, who’s also attracted to Nicole. Then David is injured, and Tommy—unaware of his friend’s injuries—endures friendly fire in the battle of Hamel. Afterward, Jamie rewards Tommy with travel to London, where David is recuperating. Tommy accompanies David on the latter’s visit to his family, where they consummate their relationship, vowing love but also secrecy as they return to the front. They join up for a dangerous mission to transport an injured officer and, by novel’s end, experience more joy and ultimate heartbreak. Ringel packs a remarkable amount of flavor and detail into this debut work. In addition to providing a compelling love story, he serves up gripping depictions of the war’s horrible, often absurd battles and the male camaraderie and army bureaucracy that accompanied them. While some trysts stretch the imagination—lovemaking in an occupied ambulance?—Ringel has created an overall appealing romance with memorable characters, particularly open-hearted Iowan Tommy, “a lad who speaks his mind, and keeps the rest of us honest—maybe even human.”

Accomplished, touching historical fiction.