A story about courage and choosing what kind of person you want to be. Mostly I felt like the story was a very subtle guide for virgins. I mean particular educational resources are even name dropped among other potentially useful information (ie - why beach relations may not be the best choice). It was quick read and emotionally intense. ( )

This second volume of the very aptly named ‘Love’s Charter’ series is as intense as the first one. This time both main characters have issues with dealing with and separating from their overbearing fathers, though for very different reasons. Neither Skippy, who is a lawyer, nor Billy Ray, who is a mate on one of William and Mike’s charter ships, are truly their own men when their story begins. They may legally be adults around thirty, but mentally they have not “cut the cord” to follow their own paths. Watching them battle their demons and deal with the fallout of coming out (for Billy Ray) and of choosing his own path in his career (for Skippy) was nerve-wrecking, emotionally draining, and spellbinding all at the same time. With his usual flair of creating multilayered characters who battle major obstacles to their own happiness, Andrew Grey, by telling Billy Ray and Skippy’s story, has given me two more men I wish I could meet in real life.

Billy Ray has managed to create a life separate from his strict father – a homophobic, righteous, hell-and-brimstone-preaching reverend who wants everyone to follow his lead to find salvation. But while Billy Ray is financially independent and lives away from home, mentally and emotionally he is still trying to please his father. He has not come out, and when his father discovers the truth, I almost expected Billy Ray to cave. It was a wonderful surprise to see him stand up to the bully pretending to be “a man of God” – better, in fact, than Skippy managed. Yes, Billy Ray had Skippy’s moral support and that helped, but Billy Ray was the one who did all the hard work.

Skippy is a lawyer in his father’s firm, still trying to win his father’s acceptance and approval. It was hard to watch him cave again and again, forgetting what he wanted out of life, only to return to doing whatever his father told him to do. Yes, Skippy wanted a successful career, but he kept sacrificing his principles to try to get his father to be proud of him. It takes him a long, long time to wake up and smell the roses, and Billy Ray has a lot to do with that. When Skippy finally sees the light, so to speak, the confrontation and the result are epic.

Aside from the personal growth the two men face, there is a suspenseful plot around an oil company wanting to build a pipeline against the locals’ wishes, Skippy working for the kind of ruthless environmentally harmful company he hates, and Billy Ray discovering the truth about Skippy’s job – which he fears will make him unemployed. Things get tense between both men for a while, but there are lots of great secondary characters around to help both Billy Ray and Skippy see what’s really important. Their happy end is definitely hard-earned though!

If you like romances full of suspense and lots of personal issues, if you enjoy watching adults realizing they have a ways to go before they are truly independent, and if you’re looking for a read that is engaging, full of conflict, and has a deeply passionate love story at its core, then you will probably like this novel as much as I do. It’s got a great setting, wonderfully complicated characters, and Billy Ray and Skippy’s struggle to find happiness together made it into yet another spellbinding Andrew Grey novel for me.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. ( )