Review: Should Have Been Five Stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 6, 2014
Lynn Townsend is a truly gifted author. This book was written with such assurance, mastery and imagery that I just didn't want it to end.It's the story of two guys in Freshman year at college, Beau and Vin. Beau is a naive farm boy who's never been with a man, Vin is a spectacularly wealthy urbanite with tons of experience under his belt (literally). They start as acquaintances just as Beau starts coming out, become friends and then, somewhere along the line, fall in love and become a committed couple. That's the whole plot.There's not a lot of angst. One story line has Vin finding out that his mother was murdered when he was a toddler, but that goes nowhere, and Vin has to deal with coming out to his family, which does not go well. There's also a rather serious gay bashing.There is just nothing that special about the plot or the rather attractive and deeply-drawn characters (and the secondary characters, as well), but, on the other hand, the writing is both brilliant and captivating. I was just enjoying the banter in the dialogue (there's a whole slew of puns on one secondary character's name, Hector, that turns everything into a pun-filled "hecsperience". I just loved the words, the pacing, the illumination of characters through dialogue and environment. It's exactly what a great novel should be.Except for one thing, which is why I only gave this book four stars instead of five. The ending. Or, really, the lack of one.As the book gets to the last pages, there is a conversation between Vin and a private detective in which Vin authorizes the detective to find out "where the hell his father has been" all these years.And the next line is "The End". No climax. No HEA. Nothing. It's as though someone took a pair of scissors to the manuscript and just said "hey, let's end it here". I felt cheated of the emotional moment, that special point where the reader is left with hope for the couple, or fear for their future. Nothing. Just "The End".I assume that this book is a setup for a sequel (at least I hope so), but there's no indication of that, even in the afterword. Ms. Townsend, as far as I know, has only published this one full-length book. All her other work (at least what's available on Amazon) is very short stories (15-35 pages).I sure do hope there's more coming because I want to find out what happens to this couple. And more important, I want to watch this talented author grow from book to book. However, since I was left "in the lurch", as it were, I deducted one star.If a sequel becomes available, I'll add the fifth star back in.