About halfway through this book, I felt the urge to tweet about it:
“When you think you’re gonna read a ridiculous kinky romp and it turns out to be a really sweet, poignant love story instead.”
I’ve gotten to the point (due to the sheer amount of reading being done) that I’m no longer officially reviewing every book I read for the blog. I tend to leave just two or three sentences on Goodreads for the stories that lean more toward straight-up erotica. Based on what I have read so far from Merikan, a team of authors I thoroughly enjoy, in conjunction with this book’s blurb, I fully expected this novel to fall in that category. Instead, I found myself sucked into the main character’s life and drama and thoroughly engrossed in the peculiar situation he’d found himself in.
The novel begins pretty much the way it says on the tin, with Max launching himself into Dayton’s life in the strangest (but sexiest?) way possible. Immediately after, however, we learn the reality of Max’s situation and why he was in prison to begin with, and it’s easy to see why Dayton originally latched onto Max from a distance and then has no idea what to do with him in real life.
Ultimately, the way Dayton uses Max as an escape from “real life” ends up being more accurate than he could have ever expected. Max throws a wrench into the existence Dayton though he was resigned to. Despite the occasional sexiness, this book is just as much about Dayton coming into his own as it is about the nontraditional origins to their relationship. As one of the authors replied to my tweet above, “as sweet as it is dirty,” and well worth the read.
Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.