Review: Mathew Ortiz has returned to writing a good story.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2013
I decided to give Mathew Ortiz another go.  I loved his Renovating Love series and the Cookies series, but hated Costa Living two part serialised story that was over-priced and under-delivered as a story. Here however, he seems to have returned to writing a good stand-alone book that looks destined to be part of a series.  He even incorporates a couple of references to a Renovating Love character.  I was a little dismayed at the start with all the Southern twanging going on and the spelling mistakes through the book (one example is sweat potato...ewwwww) - needed more editing.  But although the spelling mistakes grate like nails down a blackboard it didn't take away from the story once I could get into the characters and ignore the obvious attempts at down-home linguistics.The story is very good.  The story is told from the point of view of Emmett (Em) and from Alex.  This is not always my favourite mode of story telling but it doesn't really detract from the flow of the story.  Small town outside Atlanta, hard-working well-to-do family full of love and their own issues and boy meets boy (through Emmett's Momma - who asks Alex if he is a homosexual).  Not every day a Mother asks someone if they are homosexual to ascertain whether he is a dating prospect for her big beautiful bear of a son - but hey a love connection is a love connection.  There is acceptance within the family and most of the community.  There is a lot of genealogy given, and holy hell you practically need to start writing a family tree to keep track of all the names.  Throw a few begat's in there and you get the idea it's bigger than Ben-Hur.I see a minimum of two more stories with Alex's friend Hale and Em's cousin Bumper plus Em's Uncle Eli and Oscar Hernandez (who works for Cormac O'Malley-Ong who we met in the Renovating Love series); and even perhaps Mike Wirbowski the dishy cop from Atlanta. But with a family bigger than Texas there could be many more in the series.One thing I didn't like was the use of a LOT OF CAPITALS to denote yelling - which he does a lot.  Or it denotes a loud noise - like Hale hammering on the bathroom door then yelling at Alex or Alex/Emmett to stop having sex in the bathroom.Quite a good rounded story, back to his good writing.  Nice job Mathew Ortiz, I am glad I gave you another try.  This is where your writing should be - a couple of copy editing tweaks and less of the down-home slang and twang and it would be perfect.  But the story was good - you nailed it.