Title: Made in Heaven
Author: Stefan Schmidt
Format: Novel
Published/Free: Free
Length: 165k
Status: Complete
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Warnings not provided
Link: http://www.gayauthors.org/story/stefan/madeinheaven
Summary: Maxim, occasionally piano player at Berlin’s gay bar,Made in Heaven has a long crush on Christian. When he sees his chance he takes it, not knowing that fulfilled dreams do not always hold what they promise. Being thrown in a jumble of feelings he’s unaware that Christian is not what he seems to be and that some relationships are sealed in hell. Tim’s waiting for Maxim, but he doesn’t realize that Tim would do everything for him until it is almost too late.
Review: Stefan Schmidt’s stories have a real novel feel to them, they focus on more than one main character and have an even higher number of very important and well-developed supporting characters, the villains are well-rounded and come with interesting backgrounds which also drives the plot forward, and they come with big city European setting. And the sex is delicious, tender, loving and highly erotic. Made in Heaven is no exception.
Maxim is in his early to mid twenties and work extra at a gay piano bar a couple of times a week. During the past year he has had his eyes on a certain Christian Kramer, and when he breaks up with his long term boyfriend Maxim takes his chances to go after him. Nothing is however what it seems with Christian, and it’s not until it’s too late that Maxim realizes this. Pretty fast he finds himself in an abusive and dominant relationship, completely ruled by Christians wish to keep his lover for ever to whatever cost it takes.
The setting is Berlin, and many of the places mentioned in the story do exist in the real world, not the least Maxim’s regular workplace, the book store Prinz Eisenherz. The book store is almost the center of the story, in which also Maxim’s friends work, Nadine the straight female friend, Tim, the boyish looking guy having a serious crush on Maxim, and eventually Philipp, Christians ex-boyfriend who knows what’s going on with Christian but is reluctant to share the information.
Parallel to the main story runs the story within the story, a book Tim has written with the title ‘Made in Heaven’, about the risks of wishes come true - a granted wish is the father of many more wishes it says, or something like it.
This is a somewhat thought provoking story about our dreams of never ending love. The story within the story is funny at times and the main story focuses on the important subject of abuse and to some extent violence within same sex relationships.
Schmidt is German, and this is noticeable in the text. It’s not all grammatically perfect, but because the story is so good, I can bare it with no trouble at all. It might be different though to someone who has English as their first language - still it’s worth a read, I think.
(Original Post)