Review: Loved it, loved it, can't wait to reread it.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 29, 2014
Like: The mystery. Merrow spends more time establishing the list of suspects before any crime actually occurs. By the time it did, I was feeling a tad impatient. It wasn’t until about 50% through that I stopped looking for bodies on the ground & realized I had a cozy on my hands. At that point, my formative years watching “Murder She Wrote” with my gramps kicked in & I was able to just relax and enjoy myself.Love: Phil, aka Mr. Tight-of-a**-&-lip. At times it’s like he’s being paid to avoid any kind of emoting. However, if Phil is reluctant to talk, Merrow lets us know, through brief comments & sideways glances, that his granite exterior hides a lot of personal pain. Phil’s got a lot of stuff going on in his head and I sometimes wonder what this series would look like from his point of view.Love: Tom, aka Mr. Charming-or-he-who-winks-too-much. Tom isn’t too super in the communication department either. He appears a much more open character, but he’s got his own issues to deal with and frequently runs scared if the conversation threatens to move in a direction he might find hurtful. At one point in Relief Valve, Phil actually starts to open up a little & Tom bounces out of bed, winks (probably) & announces he needs a shower. SIT THE FRAKKING FUDGE DOWN, TOM. And stop winking...you're gonna fracture an eyelid.Love: Tom & Phil. Okay, so both Tom & Phil have issues, but it’s excellent how a lot of these issues stem from the same event (the event that caused Tom's limp). In Relief Valve they never really bring it up themselves, but it is mentioned by other characters. It’s a continuing source of tension that hangs over both novels.Love: Tom & Phil again. Relief Valve deals with the fall-out of their new relationship. (I must be slow 'cause I didn’t even notice this at first—I was too busy wondering when the bodies were going to start dropping.) It takes place only a few months after Pressure Head and Tom & Phil aren’t quite an established couple yet. They spend most of their time dancing around their own feelings & each other’s while simultaneously dealing with disapproval over their relationship from Tom’s friends and family. Several miscommunications ensue.Love: Tom & Phil 4-EVAH. Our boys don’t spend all of Relief Valve running scared. There’s plenty of sweetness for us romantics—there’s also at least one burning hot sex scene (the impatient may turn to location 2464). Most of the novel consists of them becoming more comfortable as a couple and learning to trust each other. I loved experiencing that with them. It made me smile like silly when Phil passed on a bj to check out a bump on Tom’s head: “Phil slung his arm around me and pulled me in close. ‘Come on, let’s just watch the telly’…I sighed and cuddled into his side. Bloody c*ck-blocking head wounds.”Love: JL Merrow. She provides no easy solutions. She’s sneakily using humor, mystery & a limp to cover up darker themes--like the ramifications of homophobia & fear. Or how a decision we made in split second 15 years ago can haunt us for a lifetime. She’s so good, it’s just awesome. (*happy sigh*)Looking forward to: Plumber’s Mate #3 (which is called Heat something or other). I think (hope) we’ll see more of both Tom & Phil’s families & get more of Tom & Phil in wuuuuuv.4.5 stars