Quick Review: The Wysh by L. Shannon

L. Shannon

The Wysh (Wysh #1)

Amber Allure, December 18, 2011 | 42 pages

Author’s website | Goodreads | Buy book here

Backblurb:
Lindsey Hamilton is a guy who just happens to make his living writing erotic romance. The problem is his royalties are all late and his bills are all on time. What’s a guy to do? His options open up in a strange way when he gets invited to a midnight rendezvous. Although he expects to be meeting a pervert, and plans to let the poor disillusioned guy down easy, he instead comes face to face with a real life demon.
Scott Wysh is a blood demon, living and hiding among humans. To perform his very public job, however, he has to alter his demonic looks, and to do that, he needs regular blood. That’s where Lindsey comes in. After reading a vampire romance that Lindsey wrote, Wysh is convinced he’s found the perfect donor. Possibly the perfect lover.
All that’s left is making the deal...


Genre & Keywords:
M/M Romance, Paranormal, Blood Demon, Writer, Short Story, Gay Virgin, Gay For You-ish

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Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Heat level: 2 out of 3 flames
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Apparently this is the first in a series although it’s a rather short story and for a first installment in a paranormal series it miraculously lacks any kind of world building.

We meet erotic romance author Lindsey, a straight guy who writes m/f romance. His publisher advises him to present himself as a female rather than a male author. He’s struggling for money, raising his younger brother and endlessly waiting for his royalties while the bills keep piling up. When he receives an invitation to meet a stranger with the promise of good money, he reluctantly goes to the meeting. It turns out the stranger is Wysh, a blood demon, who wants to pay him for blood. The lure of money and Wysh’s sincerity make Lindsey give in. The blood sucking turns out to be quite erotic for them.

Here’s where I started to frown a bit. First, Lindsey hardly blinks an eye when he hears about Wysh being a blood demon. Second, Lindsey is straight and yet he easily gives in to the sexual events with the male demon without questioning his feelings much. Third, Wysh assumed that Lindsey’s female and when he turns out to be male nothing really happens.

After their first meeting two weeks pass and then Lindsey starts to miss the demon and seeks him out, again without questioning his gay feelings. He ends up at a photo shoot where Wysh is modeling underwear – instead of hunting vampires, like he said his kind does – and again they end up having sex. Rather hot sex, I must say. Lindsey loses his ‘gay’ virginity here. There’s a really tiny misunderstanding with some hurt feelings on both sides before they make up while being still on the same set.

And that’s it, the story abruptly ends there. We don’t know much more about Wysh’s background, from which world he comes, how he ended up modeling underwear, nothing. The ending is a thin Happy For Now ending at the most. And to be honest, I’m not enough invested yet in these guys to be interested in the next installment of the series, to see if they find their HEA. Nor isn’t there an interesting world revealed that I want to learn more about.
I’m left a bit puzzled after finishing this story. It’s certainly not badly written, but it’s simply too short and ‘unfinished’ to give me the fulfillment I seek in a romance story. Too bad, because it certainly did have potential.
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