Review: This is One Third Of A Book
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 2, 2014
I've decided to write a single review for the three books in this series, and post it here so that potential readers might get my $.02 worth before deciding whether to read them.And you do have to read "them" because, much to my surprise, they really aren't three full books with beginnings middle and endings, but three parts of a single book. The first two end without resolving anything, leading (of course) to the third book, where all is eventually worked out. This is not a problem for me, as the first book is free and the later two are priced low enough that, taken together, it's still a pretty good deal.This is the story of Abel and his sister Savannah, though neither is their real name. Abandoned by their drug-addicted parents to an orphanage at the age of 12 (or so - some places in the book mention him going into "care" when he was eleven, but by the end of the books, that's been changed to 13). They ran away when they were 14 and 11, respectively, and spent five years on the streets, sometimes feeding themselves out of dumpsters. When Book 1 starts out, they share an apartment and Abel is the featured dancer at the Phoenix, a successful all-male strip club. But since they're living incognito (you'll find out why towards the end of the second book), they can't avail themselves of any official assistance. Things get hairy when Savannah takes ill.At the hospital, Abel meets Dr. Gorgeous and he's off to the races, falling head-over-heels in love with the unattainable good Doctor. And one reason he's "unattainable" is the deeply ingrained damage done to his soul by violent sexual abuse. I mean, someone has to believe that he's not good enough for the other one or it wouldn't be an M/M Romance.The books are pretty well-written and, often, engrossing. The characters are either male strippers, hot doctors or young, well-kept millionaires, so everyone is far beyond attractive - which leads to a lot of hot sex on the pages. The plot did capture my interest, but both the big "reveal" and the ending were telegraphed as early as the second half of the first book. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch how it played out.There were a few issues, however.First, even though a major character falls victim to HIV, with all the teeth-gnashing and tears associated with the diagnosis, there is hardly a condom in sight anywhere in the book. And that's pretty unforgivable when three of the characters are highly promiscuous, and Abel's older lover was a complete stranger to him when he barebacked without even asking his status. I like bareback sex, I like reading about it, but in more responsible books, the lovers use protection until they are fully tested and commit to monogamy. Not in these three books.Second, what is with the weepy gay thing that some female authors seem to have latched on to lately? I swear, Abel spends at least two thirds of these books, welling up, overflowing tears, or grabbing himself around the middle, bent over in hysterical sobs. Dr. Gorgeous, on the other hand, spends several weeks throwing up after he discovers something bad about a family member.Third, how about an editor? Or one that can read? As much as I enjoyed all three parts of this book (and I did), I dinged it one full star for the dreadful editing that interrupted my concentration over and over again. Some of those errors were unforgivably illiterate: "Abel had nearly went into a panic" or "Devlin had went into medicine"? I don't know who could write that, to begin with, and who could possibly have missed such embarrassing grammar when editing it? By the way, authors, I can't say it enough: plurals do NOT take apostrophes: "He brought over an assortment of DVD's...". I didn't decide that I was going to remove a star for editing until I realized that the author couldn't even spell the main character's name consistently. Mostly it was "Abel". Sometimes it was "Able".C'mon authors, you owe your paying readers something better than this. What good is a great plot and great characters and themes when you can't even read the book?Oh well, enough of that. I did like the books, and they did move me deeply in a number of places, so I do recommend them to those of you who aren't put off by weepy heroes and bad editing.