NATURAL ENEMIES BY ROAN PARRISH
Ok, I have been waiting to sink my teeth into this anthology for the longest time and I decided I would read it as a little palette cleanser in between my other reviews. I went in and picked an author I knew but hadn't read in a while: Roan Parrish. Her story is called Natural Enemies (a punny title if I ever read one) about two botanists, both appealing in their own way, who choose to go about using their skills in different ways, start off as enemies and soon discover that there may be something waiting to bloom between them if only they'd give it a chance.
Stefan is a "plant eugenicist" whose days include time in the lab, lunch in the lab and evenings cooking dinner just to keep from thinking about the lab. He is described as a preppy black man who wears wool pants and sweater and shirt combos well. I honestly loved how stuffy he seemed initially because there was so much more to him as time went on and that was a treat! He dealt with person fears and changed for the better as the story went on. Stefan has always had trouble connecting with others, either being seen as too white for his black friends or too competitive for everyone else. He talks about always having something in him that people notice and shy away from, leading to his lonely existence. He takes a botany tour and is incensed to discover Milo talking to the visitors about how to grow plants when he should be telling them about the more pertinent issues relating to plants that a person can't discover by simply using Google (his words, not mine).
Milo is like a breath of fresh air. He is this funny, gentle man in charge at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens who spends his entire life around plants. If he isn't helping kids from Erasmus, a school in the area, discover the love of plants, he's tending to his neighbour's plants or the plants on his rooftop garden. He was the one of the pair I found more appealing: his love of plants was down to basics and so clearly visible that it made him really endearing. He had his moments of imperfect action but I couldn't help but forgive him because he was coming from a good place. Milo was picked as one of 30 under 30 leading to a rather naked photo shoot for charity and it was really endearing how shy he was about being naked around anyone other than Stefan.
Overall the novella was a treat! I enjoyed it from start to finish and had a couple of laughs along the way. I gave it a rating of 4 stars and as per usual with novellas I found myself wanting more at the end! Ah well, here's hoping the couple pop up in the Roan Parrish universe sometime soon!
See more by Roan Parrish here.
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