I've been struggling with my love for m/m books for a while now, and have been reading more m/f romance for that reason too, but every now and then I try another m/m book again. Hoping to find what I loved about the genre once more. Last week I tried a book from a completely unknown author to me:
Guys on Top by Darien Cox. It was discussed by Amy and Jen at
Fiction Vixen and it piqued my interest because of the ménage that's not a ménage premise.
Reading this book accomplished what not many m/m books could lately: I couldn't put it down!
Doug Crandall’s perfect suburban life imploded after his boyfriend’s betrayal and a subsequent lawsuit left him personally and financially devastated. A year later, with a new place in the city and a fresh outlook, he’s back on his feet and ready to start over. Eager to lose his cynicism and heal his battered heart, he immerses himself in the local social scene, which includes a pair of charismatic men engaged in an open relationship. As Doug finds himself becoming emotionally and sexually entangled in their lives, he’s forced to reevaluate his views on fidelity, betrayal, love, and the often calamitous price of happiness.
It's not only the characters that I loved, because they felt so real, but I also liked the fluent writing style, the dialogues, the heat of the building anticipation before every sex scene, the secondary characters, the conflict, how emotions are conveyed, the three dimensionality of it all and the pace and development of the plot. It did have some flaws too, but they didn't bother me much due to the strong storytelling. The author had me invested in his characters from the first pages on and I wanted to know what happened next until the last page.
After that I wanted to read another one of his books and I picked
Criminal Pleasures, which was again a wonderful read.
When young attorney Brendan Burke opens his first law practice in a new city, he knows things are about to change in his life—though he never expected one of those things to be his sexual orientation. But when he meets Marcello, a sexy and mysterious stranger working at a restaurant in Providence’s Little Italy, he can’t fight his compulsion to pursue him. But while Marcello is willing to let Brendan into his bedroom, he’s stubbornly elusive about his past and his family. Fixated on discovering the truth, Brendan’s passion for Marcello turns out to be far more dangerous than he ever anticipated.
I especially loved the plot twists and the mystery in this one, but the sex was as hot, if not hotter, than in
Guys on Top without ever becoming boring. Maybe that was thanks to one of the main characters being inexperienced with gay sex, but also due to the sexy dirty talking for sure! Whew! Again, this book brought lifelike characters and a real (not necessarily realistic) setting and string of events to me, which I gobbled up in almost one sitting. And once more the flaws this story had didn't show themselves until after I finished the book because I was too engrossed to notice them while reading.
These books have brought me some entertaining hours with my old love, m/m romance. Just what I needed to keep faith in that love. :)
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