Review: A generally nice romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2011
I had a hard time deciding how to rate this. If truth be told, I almost stopped reading after the first chapter. But I decided to continue and was pleased when it turned into a quite enjoyable romance.John Brockwell is a general contractor in the small Texas town of Parrish Creeek not far from Austin. He was the star athlete in High School, and with the loss of his father not long ago, now runs the family contracting business. He has custody of his 13-year-old son, the town is suffering from the economic recession, and he is deeply in debt and can barely buy even the necessities. Calvin Hamilton was raised in the town, but is now a happy New York advertising and PR executive. He returns back to Parrish Creek to sell his family home when his parents move off to Florida. Coming back is hard because he was openly gay in High School and endured a lot of taunting and abuse. When Calvin hires "Brock" (John) to fix up the house so it can be sold, there's some initial tension between the two men because John's high school buddies would torment Calvin and John would let them, but soon sparks start flying. The question soon becomes how to make this relationship work.The story moves at a good pace, and Drew Hunt does a nice job. There's some witty dialog and scenes are nicely executed to allow easy visualization. There are some rough spots though that I sincerely hope Drew can master and avoid in future novels. There was, at first, at tendency to try to literally explain character motivations, rather than illustratively explain them. For instance, you're told at one point, and told rather directly, that Calvin suspects Brock is deeply closeted. The problem is that it's done to explain this trait directly, rather than illustrating the trait through the character's actions. That is similar to other things going on in the first couple chapters that seem out of place with the rest of the story. Calvin is at first painted as a self-centered angry New Yorker with disdain for the small-town hicks around him. Brock is also painted as a VERY homophobic closeted man (yes, he's quite homophobic and directs many anti-gay remarks at Calvin) in those early pages. The problem is that it simply is not true for either character. Brock is not only not anti-gay, he's only closeted to people outside his family and has already confided his sexuality to his son and ex-wife (with whom he maintains a good relationship). In other words, he totally self-identifies as being gay, and doesn't feel shame over it. The homophobia exhibited simply seems fully out of place for him. Even Calvin is not as self-centered and supercilious as originally portrayed.But reading on, the story soon slips into a smooth and consistent flow and the real characters emerge. What follows is a traditional romance flowing at a nice pace with some nice visualizations and dialog. The conflict within the pages is not that Calvin must bring Brock out of the closet, but that Brock is a Texas man with some pride and resists Calvin's urges to pay off his debt and support him. Brock also doesn't really want to leave Texas, and Calvin is adamant about living in New York, so geography poses another problem for these two men who have fallen for each other. Will Brock be happy living in New York? Will his son be happy living there?I felt the book started off a bit shakily, but was very pleased when not too far into it, I realized that it hit its stride, maintained consistency, and was becoming a very enjoyable tale. The only drawback were those character traits painted at the beginning that had to be dispelled. I'm very happy I continued reading, because I was definitely rewarded with a sweet tale that, at times, pulled at the heart.