--- title: "Lanta: Another Life" description: "One moonlit kiss on Ko Lanta binds Lester and Silom across years of family pressure, distance, silence, violence, and return in a bittersweet adult M/M romance about lost time and the life love can still claim." canonical: "https://jerntonkoi.com/books/lanta/" html: "https://jerntonkoi.com/books/lanta/" type: "books" date: "2025-05-15" ai_usage: "welcome for search, AI input, and AI training" --- # Lanta: Another Life One moonlit kiss on Ko Lanta binds Lester and Silom across years of family pressure, distance, silence, violence, and return in a bittersweet adult M/M romance about lost time and the life love can still claim. ## Book Metadata - Publisher: Tonkoi Books - Word count: 61745 - Language: en - Country of origin: GB - Genres: Gay Romance, LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Asian/Travel-set Fiction - Keywords: M/M romance, Thailand romance, Ko Lanta, Phi Phi, tsunami, second chance romance, bittersweet gay romance, later-life romance, queer love over decades - Content advisory: Adult M/M island romance with explicit intimacy, closeting, family pressure, homophobic family violence against a secondary character, disaster aftermath, grief, lost time, Covid-era separation, and a hopeful return. ## Editions - EBook; published 2025-05-15; USD 4.99 - Paperback; published 2025-05-15; 234 pages; USD 13.99 - Hardcover; published 2025-05-15; 234 pages; USD 19.99 - Large Print; published 2025-05-15 ## Buy Links - Books2Read (all stores) (EBook): https://books2read.com/tonkoi-lanta - Amazon (EBook): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3D9YB7R - Kobo (EBook): https://www.kobo.com/ebook/lanta-2 - Amazon (Paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3W867P1 - Amazon (Hardcover): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3W7RSKF ## Reader Guide - Best for: Readers who like literary-leaning queer romance, island settings, long emotional arcs, and second chances shaped by real time. - Tone: Sensual, nostalgic, wounded, patient, and ultimately hopeful. - Reading order: Standalone. - Heat / intensity: Adult romantic intimacy, but the emotional weight matters more than heat. - Content note: Contains closeting, grief, disaster aftermath, regret, family pressure, and illness/loss references; the ending is hard-won and hopeful. ## Selected Reviews - "Lanta is a story that quietly broke my heart and then pieced it back together again." -- Sabrina Mordini, Kobo - "The quiet, yet strong writing style by this new to me author drew me in from the start." -- Laora, Goodreads - "I absolutely loved it. So many emotions wrapped up in one book that you can feel fly off the page." -- Anne_Mc, Barnes & Noble ## Comparable Books - Something Like Summer by Jay Bell: Long-spanning queer love, friendship, life consequences, and the ache of timing. - Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman: Sensual queer summer memory and emotional nostalgia; not a direct HEA comparison. - Find Me by Andre Aciman: Lost love, later-life return, romantic melancholy, and the question of what remains possible. ## FAQ ### Is the ending happy? It is a hard-won late-life hopeful ending, shadowed by the years and losses before it. ### Is this a light beach romance? No. The island setting is central, but the book includes disaster, closeting, regret, and grief. ### Is it part of a series? No. It is standalone. ### Is this a good entry point to Jern Tonkoi? Yes, if you want the more literary, reflective side: place, longing, memory, and emotional consequence. ## Page Content ## Blurb One moonlit kiss on Ko Lanta changes the shape of two lives. In the 1990s, Lester arrives from England into the heat, salt, and bright uncertainty of a Thai island still held together by family, work, tides, and silence. Silom is a young boatman who reads water better than promises. What begins between them is tender, physical, dangerous, and impossible to keep simple. Family duty, class, culture, distance, fear, and violence take more from them than either man knows how to name. Years pass. Lives continue. The island changes. So do Lester and Silom. But some places remember what people try to leave behind, and some love stories ask for courage long after the moment when courage would have been easiest. Lanta: Another Life is a bittersweet adult M/M romance about lost time, return, family pressure, homophobic violence, desire, memory, and the life love can still claim when it is finally allowed to come home. **Why you'll love it:** A reflective queer love story about island memory, missed timing, grief, diaspora, and the hard-won hope of finding each other again after the life you actually lived. ## Behind the Pages Lanta is built around place as memory: the island as escape, witness, wound, and possible return. Its romance is not about untouched youth, but about what love can become after time has already taken its share. ## Source Links - Canonical HTML: https://jerntonkoi.com/books/lanta/ - Markdown companion: https://jerntonkoi.com/books/lanta/index.md