Book Description 

Alfie Bell is…fine. He’s got a six-figure salary, a penthouse, the car he swore he’d buy when he was eighteen, and a bunch of fancy London friends.

It’s rough, though, going back home now everyone knows he’s a pansy. He thought he’d escaped that old town, and the lie he lived there, years ago. It’s the last place he’s expecting to meet someone. But Fen’s gorgeous, with his pink-tipped hair and hipster glasses and flower shop, full of the sort of courage Alfie’s never had. It should be a one-night thing, but Alfie hasn’t met anyone like Fen before.

Except he has. At school, when Alfie was everything he was supposed to be, and Fen was the stubborn little gay boy who wouldn’t keep his head down—and who, despite their growing connection, will never truly forgive him.

Fen just wants to live his life. Alfie just wants to make things right. But how can he be anything other than another heartbreak waiting to happen, when all they’ve got in common is the nowhere town they both spent their lives fighting to escape?

My Review 

Apparently, based on this review, I’ve been an Alexis Hall fan for almost seven years, but this ancient review is proof. I’m reposting it because I received an ARC of this updated version last fall. Regrettably, although I (re)devoured the book and had a grand old time revisiting beloved characters, the review fell by the wayside. Quite frankly, it was quite silly of me to not be more timely with the review since all I had to do was repost the original and write a little addendum like I’m doing right now. But….. life gets in the way, you know? 

In any event, I have been thrilled to pieces about the revised versions of the Spires books, mostly because of the opportunity to own physical copies of the books. In addition to updated covers, some of the content has changed. I have read just about all of Hall’s books, but I am not savvy enough to note all the changes, but one of the updates to the book is a series of annotations, which provide the reader with insight into a variety of topics from aforementioned changes to musings on South Shields to witty asides. As a fan of Hall’s books, this was a real treat. 

Below is my original review from 2020: 

I first discovered Alexis Hall’s books in December 2018, and spent the next month reading his entire back catalog, including Pansies. A couple of months ago, the audiobook for Pansies came out, so I dove right back into the story.

Alfie grew up as a local lad in South Shields, but left his hometown for university and a high-powered financial career in London. He also realized that he was gay during this interim, something that surprised his family and friends since he had always been such a stereotypical lad.

Don’t worry: we’ll begin to address the culture of toxic masculinity later, as it plays a prevalent theme in the book.

Anyway, Alfie is back in town for a wedding, and meets Fen at a pub. After they hook up, Fen reveals that they went to high school together, and Alfie used to bully him, and he’s appalled that Alfie didn’t even recognize him.

And that’s when Alfie realizes that he feels a genuine connection with Fen, and he needs to make amends for all the things he did as a boy, and prove to Fen that he’s not the same person that he was in high school.

Meanwhile, Fen is trying to run his late mother’s flower shop—emphasis on trying—and he’s struggling with it, but he refuses to give up. The last thing he needs is Alfie showing up and trying to help him, but Alfie is persistent.   

The title is a play on words, of course: a pansy is a flower, and Fen owns a flower shop, but it’s also a pejorative for a gay man. As I mentioned, it’s hard for Alfie’s family and friends to believe that he’s a “pansy”, but that’s something they’re going to have to accept. Fen, however, is used to pejoratives, but Alfie isn’t. By virtue of his size and hyper-masculine presentation, Alfie doesn’t experience nearly as much homophobia as Fen. He doesn’t understand why Fen just accepts it instead of fighting back and this proves to be a source of tension between the two men.

Speaking of stereotypes, Hall turns one its head in a delightful scene in which Alfie—the total lad—makes an utter mess of a home improvement project and needs to be rescued by his father and brothers.

It would be irresponsibly glib to say that Alfie picked on Fen in high school because he liked him. However, there definitely appears to have been an undercurrent of resentment on Alfie’s part: Fen lived his life openly and didn’t care about what people thought of him, whereas Alfie struggled with feelings that he was too afraid to acknowledge. And certainly, that resentment played a role in Alfie’s treatment of Fen when they were younger.

But Alfie isn’t the same person as he was. He’s changed since he moved out of town, and that’s something he has to deal with: he still looks the same, but he isn’t the same person anymore, and that proves to be a bit of a challenge when he returns to his hometown. Sure, his friends are older, but aside from that, not much has changed.

Alfie and Fen have amazing chemistry together, and their romantic arc was quite the roller coaster of emotions. I don’t want to imply that there’s melodrama afoot, but it’s certainly not a case of insta-love proceeding directly to HEA. Not only does Alfie have to make amends, but he needs to prove that his feelings are genuine and his interest in Fen is not part of the reparations process. 

I would absolutely recommend Pansies. Technically, this is the fourth book in Hall’s Spires series, but the books are only loosely connected and don’t even feature the same characters, so you can read the books in any order. This was such a lovely story, and I know I’ll be revisiting it in the future. 

I received a digital ARC of the updated edition of this book from Sourcebooks/NetGalley.