Review: At last something different! Love it.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 18, 2013
This one is really good. The idea is fresh and very well executed. I could not stop reading once I started.I really like Austin and Cam. Their day to day painful struggles with the terrible memories of their 5 months plus incarceration by a psychopath was so well portrayed and heart wrenchingly real. It was easy to understand why these two needed the other to survive the horrendous memories. Each man only have the other while they were caged together. Only Austin could understand Cameron's pain and horror and vice versa. Noone else could. So it was easy to understand how the bond they forged while they were in captive was really something so much deeper.However I do have a little niggle. I could so understand the resulting love between these two guys. However could Austin so easily embraced the sexual part of it. On the other hand I am just nit-picking here as the writer did mention in a few sentences that Austin did appreciate beautiful men as he did beautiful women. So Austin was inherently bisexual. Maybe a convenience but hey this is MM romance.. Austin's marriage which had long ceased to work and a cold wife of course also helped Austin's case.I really love the growth in Austin's character as the story progressed. Austin used to be stoic, easy to please, against changes, just a simple man who does not ask for much to be content with life. His kidnapping, terrible as it may sound,  actually helped this character to grow, to be able to say no, to want more in life and take that extra step even if it was stepping out of his comfort zone. As for Cameron, revelation about his background made us realized how much harder it must have been for this character to have emerged from the ordeal still sane, much less be there for Austin. I love how one helped the other to deal with the pain and horror. At the end of the day it was so easy to root for these two to be together.As for the plot, I could only say that the flashbacks detailing their torment at the hand of the psychopath is brilliant writing. Suspenseful, riveting,  deeply emotional, bleak, heartbreaking, at times horrifying and painful to read. Yet I could not quit reading. I found myself helding my breath in nearly all the flashback scenes. Thankfully the writer interpersed the current story with the flashbacks, the flashbacks constant but short and therefore easier to read, a writing skill I appreciate.Ok so the last 20% of the story revert to the typical MM romance but hey after so much pain and suffering Austin and Cameron certainly deserve their happiness. This one seems to be only MM romance from this writer. Very glad there is a novella in progress of another victim and this time the writer could maybe tie up some loose ends. This one certainly deserves the no. 1 position in the gay romance list. Great read.