Had to read this in steps but it was very worthwhile and well written ( )

3.5 Stars

I've been seriously waffling about my rating for this book. It's more than a 3 but less than a 4...where are those half stars when you need them?!

Perhaps the book would have worked better for me had we seen more of the "happy" relationship between Kyle and Sean. As it stands, there is a brief scene with the MCs and their friends, then a morning shower sex scene, and then the drama begins. I didn't get enough of their relationship or who they were as people before the angst hit and then, honestly?, I didn't like either character overly much; both of them were childish and selfish. As written, it seemed that their only connection was really great sex and if that's all ya got it's not going to hold a relationship together during the tough stretches.

As the book progressed, I did warm up to the characters a little more. ( )

Everything I've said in other reviews of K.A.Mitchell's books holds true for this one.
However what I really liked was that in this case the two lovers have been together for six years and then things go wrong. Seen by their friends as the perfect couple, circumstances put a deepening wedge between the two, turning paradise into purgatory.
The emotional arc running through the book with two men who are still physically attracted to each other is very believable and compelling to see how it can be resolved.
I think this is my favorite by K.A.Mitchell, one of my few "must read" m/m authors. The characters are all believable, all with their flaws and good points. No-one is "wrong" or "right". As usually happens in real life, honest and open communication is at the heart of the story.
Even better on a re-read. ( )

My favourite of KA Mitchell's so far I think. Excellent, excellent book about a couple who've been together for 6 years when one is injured in a high school shooting and what happens to them after - very angsty! I liked that the couple was established to start with - it made a nice change to start with a couple who were happy together. ( )

Have ever wondered what happens after an happily ever after? And when love seems to be too much to bear?

Kyle and Sean are a perfect couple. They met in college and had an affair of a couple of night, but Kyle was too young and maybe still wanted to 'play' around; and so Sean let him grow up and when they met a second time Sean was more insistent. After a close wooing, Sean staked his claim and convinced Kyle to move to Small Town USA to live in a marriage bliss. Now six years later they are like sugar for a rot, they are almost unbearable for how much happy they are... or not? The changes Kyle has had to do, the jealousy of Sean, the little trouble from two apparently supportive families... are they all boiling under the surface waiting to blow up?

The domino effect is a tragic event: Sean is a teacher in an high school and a student gone mad starts a shooting; before Sean has the chance to stop him, the boy killed three person, one of them a little girl. Aside the fact that Sean shouldn't be the one assigned to stop him, nevertheless he feels guilty to not stop him in time. Obviously he becomes an hero and hearing all the people around him telling him so maybe alleviate that sense of guilty: if everyone thinks he is an hero, maybe they are right and he is wrong, since inside himself Sean thinks he hasn't done enough, and the few people that accuse him seem to have a strong voice.

And Kyle? Since now he was the one to need reassurance; he is the man who was wooed and coaxed, and maybe he needs to stay in center stage to feel important: him, the hispanic-italian guy from a family with too much sons to make them feel all important, now has a lover who thinks he is the sun and that all turn around him... till the day the sun is shut down, and Kyle finds himself in the role of the caretaker. And maybe Sean, once in a time, finds nice to be the object of such devotion.

Obviously this good perspective on the situation is given to the reader and not to the main characters, since nor Sean or Kyle voice their uneasiness for the situation and for more than half the book try to hide it behind the sexual chemistry that never lack to them. But when also the sex is no more enough, Kyle and Sean will have to understand that going back is not possible, above all since what they had maybe was not so perfect as they thought.

The book is pretty long, 300 pages, and it's not a story you can read in an hurry. It's not light but it's not even too angst: I like that K.A. Mitchell manages to recreate a believable conflict between the two men without never make them forget that they are in love and so they still care for each other and don't want to make the other suffer. In comparison to the other stories I read by the same author, in this one she seemed more contained, less flirty. Not that in the other stories she had not faced important matters (like parenthood for a gay father), but this work looks more complete.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CNR8M2/?tag=elimyrevandra-20