Renae Kaye

I have to say that this was my favorite story from Renae Kaye thus far, and it doesn't hurt that I also thought it was the smexiest of her works as well.

Both Elliot and Hank are starkly lonely in the small rural town in which they live. Once they know each other's secret, they forge a friendship and then an intimate relationship while trying to keep their own growing feelings for each other under wraps. This was definitely fun, flirty, playful and hot. This had great sexual tension, and it was sweetly realistic witnessing Hank navigate the ins and outs of his first relationship ever.

There was also some pointed angst and topical concerns regarding small town homophobia. These guys' situation of being forced to hide their sexuality due to fear of losing their friends and livelihood was a bit heart breaking. There was also a vulnerability to Hank as he believes he couldn't possibly hold Elliot's interest to keep him from going back to the city once his loan obligation was fulfilled.

So again Renae Kaye does great with tender angst and mixing it with a lot of humor and warmth. These two MC's didn't have a bad bone in their body and it was wonderful watching the natural progression of them falling for each other. Overall a fantastic, feel good, smexy read!… (mehr)

I really thought I would like this book. I mean, who doesn't love a good romance novel with a cute guy on the front? Let me start with the few things that I did like about this book:

-This romance novel, unlike many others, does actually challenge toxic beauty standards and stereotypes that say all gay men need to have abs and work out constantly. In fact, this book hit it a little bit more on the mark about how a cis-gendered gay man experiences the world.
-Intergenerational love is a real thing and is not written about enough. This book even did seem to focus on the nurturing aspect of relationships quite a bit more than the erotic aspect of a relationship.

What I did not like about the book:

-This particular detail is more of my fault and I voluntarily put myself through this by reading romance novels in the first place; but, the main character in this novel thought too much about financial dependence on a significant other than any other important aspect of a relationship. If you haven't picked up from the quick synopsis of this novel, the main character is interested more in older men than guys his age. The main character explains this briefly by saying he doesn't want to have to worry about a roof over his head, or how bills are going to be split, etc. Let me say this now, I have nothing against intergenerational relationships/love, what I do not like is when people view these things as tantamount to a relationship. As everything within the capitalist patriarchy, monogamous normativity is something that I believe needs to be challenged by LGBT romance writers. Like I said, I put myself through this by voluntarily picking up this novel; but, I believe there are greater issues at play when there are M/M romance novels with characters that try to fill a heteronormative role.
-The next big issue I took with this novel was the fact that the characters were so underdeveloped. The main character is not known to have any skills with cooking/baking and yet we find himself baking cakes throughout the whole novel. The cake motif is important to the plot but somehow seems so detached from the characters themselves. We also see, towards the end of the novel, a scene where the main character is having a panic attack-which he apparently has had many times in his life. Up until this point, I never would have guessed that and made me, as the reader, think that we have been cheated out of a lot of background information on the characters within this novel.
-The final thing about this novel that bothered me was not the fact that the older man in this novel was gay, but that he was separated from his wife. I understand that alot of times older gay men who aren't in long-term relationships have a former wife due to repressing their sexuality their whole life. Unfortunately, this novel perpetuates that stereotype and idea that the man and wife split because of sexual complications. I believe the older man was bisexual, but that is something that was so briefly touched on which also contributes to bisexual erasure in queer literature.

Overall, the story itself was cute but that's all it was. I don't ever see myself reading this novel again or recommending it to anyone who is just starting out with M/M romance.… (mehr)

I felt rather sorry for Liam but also exasperated with him in his inability to accepted that his sexual orientation was more than likely bi and that his father’s bigoted opinions didn’t matter. His antics were sometimes very comical and Jay?... he was just a sweetheart that made the book warm and funny. I liked that he was smart...and at very at home in his skin. I tried to think how my two “book bringing” gay friends compared to Jay and will have to say that I am 150% sure there was no way either of them would be caught dead wearing lipstick of any shade or bright red plaid pants. But hey...it suited Jay just fine. I couldn’t wait for Liam to just accept Jay for who he was and get on with the program. Somehow the author made these two sometimes kinky and exhausting character work.… (mehr)