Review: Pistols at Dawn- A Joyfully Recommended Title
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 22, 2010
Kelly Kendall is a man with issues, a fact that he knows very well and has coped with by having Will as an all-around house boy.  Kelly enjoys his life as a recluse and having Will around makes life better than Kelly expected.  However, Kelly has secrets from the world, and although Will shares them, Kelly is determined to keep them safely hidden.  As the author of the acclaimed Doorways, Kelly has managed to keep his identity hidden from the world, but when he writes a parody of Doorways called Windows on a dare from Will, it attracts all sorts of attention - attention that Kelly doesn't want.Jae-sun Fields is incensed that someone would dare write a parody of the beloved coming-of-age novel Doorways.  Working for the gossip rag The Adversary, Jae sets out to find and expose the awful woman, who is surely the culprit, of such desecration of his favorite novel.  However, as his investigation progresses he finds Kelly MacKay, who seems more than tangentially connected to his quest.  But what will Jae do with the information he finds?As Jae and Kelly continually meet, more than information is found.  Kelly is immensely attracted to Jae, but fears what such a connection might mean to his self-circumscribed isolation.  Jae wants to pursue Kelly for information, but also to satisfy his curiosity about the attraction between them.  Can both of these men make it work?ePistols at Dawn is a great emotional read that delves into the mysteries of the human mind and what it means to be gay in a not so accepting society.  Jae is a wonderfully funny character with his determination to find his nemesis and his ire at the desecration of his favorite book.  Kelly is so full of quirks that it is almost too much to deal with, but Z.A. Maxfield makes him a likeable character when she uses Will as a source of reality and mocking that slowly pushes Kelly to emerge from his shell.  As the story progresses it is sometimes hard to like Jae for his actions, but his ethics win in the end, making him a better man.  Kelly, on the other hand, is crippled by his OCD and fear of being found out as the author of such a revered work that he believes to be the product of such a self flagellation exercise.  Even as the relationship between Kelly and Jae is plagued by pot-holes in the road of love, their coming together in the end finds them both being better men for all their suffering.  As expected Z.A. Maxfield presents characters and situations that will pull you into the story and reading the book all in one sitting.  Get yourself ePistols at Dawn the next time you are looking for a sexy, emotional story!SabellaReviewed for Joyfully Reviewed