Review: Could Have Been A Five-Star Book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2014
I did really enjoy this book. Ms. Via has a great way with characters and dialog. The two main characters, Day and God, keep up the same sarcastic badinage they shared as partners in the Atlanta Police Department,  with the exception of a huge number of "I love you"s tossed into the mix.The first half of the book was wonderful. God's back story, and his estrangement from the family he still continues to support, provide the tension required to hold your interest. And the scene in which a drug "kingpin" was holding a loaded gun to Day's head was a marvel. Just the look in God's eyes when he threatened him with what he would do if he harmed a hair of Day's head was enough to drive terror into the heart of the criminal.I liked that there was minimal angst in their basic relationship. After almost five years together as partners on the job, they could already read each others' thoughts - and the fact that "I love him" was a thought they both shared, seemed to be more than enough to make the transition from partner to lover happen relatively painlessly.However, I gave the book 4 stars, but only because Amazon doesn't allow me to give it 3.5. My reservations about this book are pretty much the same as many of the other reviewers here:1) Ms. Via is a good enough writer that she doesn't need self-indulgent tricks. If she does, then the story and characters should be strengthened, instead. Naming one of the characters "God" (short for Godfrey, I believe?) was too over-the-top and annoying to serve the story well. Like others, I was often distracted reading lines similar to "God spread Day's legs...". See what I mean? It doesn't propel the story or character development. In fact, it distracts from it.2) The second half of the book was a letdown. Instead of a police story with a major and risky bust ahead of the characters, it devolves into one of those endlessly trite M/M Romance novels that I have come to dislike so intensely: sex, moving in together, sex, God with his newly reconciled brother, and the coming-out stories of other department denizens, plus more sex. Ho hum.3) So, to enliven the story, which I'm sure she realized was flagging, Ms. Via threw in a gratuitous foursome which a) made no sense with two jealous and possessive main characters and b) seems to end up being an ongoing thing, diluting the relationship between them for all time to come. Not to mention that it plays into the "promiscuous sluts" stereotype that many people use to denigrate gay men. Not good.4) As others have mentioned, the editing was execrable. This is an ongoing pet peeve of mine - spending good money on books that are, at best, merely rough drafts. If you bought any other product on Amazon with as many defects as this one, you'd return it immediately. But, somehow, we give authors a pass, when we really shouldn't. Their failure to edit their work, to deliver the best and most polished book to their readers, is nothing less than insulting. I now deduct between 1/2 and a 1 star from any review where the poor editing made it difficult or unpleasant to read the book - as I did with this one.And the problems were not just typos.a) She writes of "hangers" at a shipping port. Hangars are for airplanes, and though she misused the word, she didn't seem to care enough to even spell it right. In any case, I think she actually meant "warehouses".b) Ms. Via, apparently, does not like commas, and therefore almost never uses them to set off parenthetical expressions.c) She seems to have a big problem with prepositions, too: "Did his morning usual and left out the bathroom...", what, did he leave it out in the rain, or leave it out of the blueprints? Or didn't bother to pee and wash up? From the context, she meant "left the bathroom". Another one: "jumped out the way so Day could swat him". Out "of" the way makes some sense. This sentence did not.d) She also doesn't seem to like plurals: "I don't want you guys grilling him and asking him a million question."e) Ms. Via doesn't do too well with contractions, either, particularly with the second person: "Your [sic you're] about to turn seventeen..." or the opposite problem, using "you're" for the possessive.f) Nor is she convinced that her characters are human, as opposed to inanimate objects, referring to people as "what" or "that", rather than "whom" or "who": "He looked over to his partner that [sic who] was devouring a huge mug of coffee..." and "he gave a quick handshake to the bouncer that [sic ,who] was familiar..."g) Entire sentences were barely readable: "God was cough as much but his body hurt" .h) And finally, at the very least, an author, whose very art is the words he or she writes, should at least use the correct ones: People don't "shutter", cameras do. People "shudder". Or, "Day thought about the course beard. Scratchy bears are "coarse", not "course". One of my favorites was "There [sic "their"] intimacy had been very one-sided."I'm sure you get my drift. I don't know about other readers, but I was constantly knocked out of the story by jarring misspellings, grammatical errors, missing punctuation and the like. Not my idea of a good time.I would have liked to give this book more stars, as the characters certainly grabbed my interest and the reading (except for distractions) was pretty fluid and enjoyable - at least for the first half of the book. If Ms. Via can hire a competent editor, stop looking for self-conscious "hooks" and let the story take her where it wants to go (without substituting obvious out-of-character sexual filler), I believe she might become a top-flight author. There is a germ of real talent here.