Review: Sexy, passionate, endearing and romantic
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 10, 2014
The gay version of The Holiday! Noah would be Cameron Diaz, and Robert would be Kate Winslet.Noah Daniels and Robert Callinan share a desire to do something more with their lives. Both are college teachers, Noah in America and Robert in the UK, but they are both tired of their mundane lives, searching for something different... something more. So they swap jobs, lives and houses for 6 months.Robert is eager to learn more about his American counterpart, studying the pictures of him scattered throughout his home and pumping Noah’s brother, Mitch, for more personal information.Noah is fascinated with idea of Robert and upon inspection of the man’s home, he finds Robert’s secret DVD stash. Noah has always felt like there was something inside him that didn’t click, like there was something he was missing. When he sees Robert on screen having lots of sex, in various positions, with various lovers, everything finally clicks. Noah is gay, and he is enamored with the man he is watching. Noah recognizes something in Robert’s eyes though in the videos, a longing for something more, something missing.Through lots of late night conversations over the months they are sharing each other’s lives, Noah and Robert decide to meet and take their summer break together, touring the UK. It’s on this vacation that the two become lovers. Noah is young and fresh and his crush on the slightly older sexy man soon grows into something more. Robert is slightly jaded and not quite ready to admit that Noah has wrapped himself around his heart, like a knot.I absolutely LOVE Lily Velden. I have read all her books and I love the way she is very detailed and descriptive without being overly descriptive. You are captured by her characters and she has a way of making you ‘feel’ like you are right there with them, no matter the circumstance. They are always three dimensional, realistic and flawed in some way. That makes them human which is what makes her books so fantastic.As you travel down the road of self discovery with Noah you will laugh, you will cry and your heart will break for him. He goes through so much and his world is turned upside down in a very short time. Robert could have easily been an unlikable character, but Velden wrote him in such a way that the reader was captivated by his charm and understanding of his hesitancy.Sexy, passionate, endearing and romantic... even if there is a little heart break in there as well. For those folks out there that refuse to read a book without a happy ending, I’ll tell you that you will get a happy ending, just not exactly how it is delivered. This is definitely a must read, it will have a permanent slot on my kindle so I can re-read it whenever and wherever and all the time!** I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through MM Good Book Reviews **[...]