This is another of those little jewels that the somewhat overlooked Changeling Press catalogue can offer if you dig a bit. Of course I was helped on my discovery thanks to the name of the author, Sharon Maria Bidwell, one of the first gay romance author I read, and one of my favorite too.

This is only a novella, but it’s a nice and sweet novella, an office affair theme with just that touch of angst that will not unbalance the overall romantic feeling of the story. Robert is the classic English gentleman; when the former lover of his late stepbrother asks him for money, Robert knows she will spend it in drugs, but he also knows that she has a teenager son, not his stepbrother son, but nevertheless the last contact with his beloved relative. Robert gives her the money, hoping she will use part of them for the boy. He doesn’t imagine that the same boy will use that money to change his life and coming back years later to thanks him.

But when Lee meets again Robert, he realizes that the gratitude he was carrying for all those years is developed in something more: Lee, a young gay teenager boy, idolized Robert like the perfect lover, the prince charming coming to save him, and in all his following relationship he was searching the Robert’s clone. And now that he is in front of him, that Robert is interested, and gay, and that he hasn’t recognized him, Lee is unwilling to let his only chance to love being tainted by the doubt, Lee is sure that, if Robert knew who he is, he would not even give a chance to their love.

Despite this being only a novella, the plot is well developed, the balance between story and sex is perfect, and even the supporting character, Robert’s business partner Phil and his p.a. Anna, have enough development to make them real characters and not only someone in the background.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1209814.html