This book is special, and I can’t understate that. While considering how to speak to what it is, tell how it made me feel and what I think about it, I tried to wrap my head around the fact that it’s at its core a coming of age, a commentary on power (because I lack the understanding of what politics or nature it speaks to), and an exploration of practical and supernatural magic. The Last Hot Time is, truly, an undiscovered gem. So many parts subtle and as many words and pages eloquent and slick and groovy. It’s goth, it’s a reimagining of contemporary fantasy, it’s plot driven but unable to progress without its characters… I’m spellbound, bewildered, nodding my head in knowing and spitting glossolalia like it’s sense. Ford delivered a novel of unspeakable depth and beauty, packaged as an action semi-noir adventure, riddled with gorgeous description and sleight of hand scene transitions that evoke a quality of ethereal while remaining too truly real. Science fictions and fantasies pretend at world building, subtly gifted to layer a narrative with weight, but Ford delivered a masterwork of contemporary AND post-modern magic. What’s it about? A boy maybe questioning his sexuality leaves his American town to explore who he is in the rift of an established frontier of magic in the ordinary world where elves and humans find themselves drawn to power and safety and meaning finds himself the lever of war as a healer that must understand what pain is in order to attain the power to shape a world of uncertain permanence. What? No, I don’t know what I mean. Or what Ford meant. Eloquent, evocative, and very final, The Last Hot Time is a novel for anyone searching for a tale that can be told by anyone hoping for something better than where they are. Then, now, hopefully not tomorrow.