Just like the other two volumes in the series, this long awaited third sequel was amazing in its character development and in the problems that gay men have with (some) churches.

David has tremendous issues when he realizes he's going to have to leave the Roman Catholic church if he wants to be with his lover Conner. Conner is very supportive, but many of the internal problems are David's to solve. Once he has done that he still needs to tackle his family and even though one of his brothers is gay and fully accepted by their parents, David is still scared. How he overcomes that fear is described with sensitivity and very credible.

I loved it!

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This was probably the most awaited book from Bobby Michaels’ fans. For various reasons its release slipped month after month, and the book itself went under a total rewriting. Saying that I was curious to read it is saying a lie… I was dying curious to read it.

Each and every book by Bobby Michaels is a piece of him. Who he is, what he likes, how he lives, all of it is in his books. Bobby Michaels is angry? Then his character is angry. Bobby is sad? Then his character is sad. Bobby believes, despite everything, that the world could be better? Then his character has a hope that is greater than the world. Recently I read a right polemic about not judging a fictional book on the personal experience of its writer, and I firmly believe in it, with an exception: you can’t separate Bobby Michaels from his book, they are the same thing. There is an innocence in his characters that has written all over “Bobby”.

Innocence, what an odd word to describe characters who seem to base everything on sex, on the more basic instinct, like smelling the sex, like tasting the sex; but David and Conner, like Dar and Gregg, and Vince and Drew before, are all innocent. The world has not corrupted them, love is still the force that drives them, and sex is only the way to express it. If someone wonders on the credibility of two characters who fall in love at first sight, well then, maybe, that someone has lost its innocence. David and Conner can fall in love at first sight since they still firmly believe in it, they still consider it possible.

And the innocence and the hope it’s not only in the characters, it’s also in the story. David, Roman Catholic priest, has the chance to love and marry Conner simply changing his orientation becoming an Episcopal priest; he can continue to be a priest, he finds another Church that is willing to accept him, he has family and friends to support him. No apparently obstacles in his path, same as for Conner and his work as police detective. Are you thinking that this is too good to be true? Same here, friends, but I think that Bobby Michaels is not trying to tell you the reality as it’s, he is trying to tell you the reality as he would like it to be; this is his version of the story, how he is hoping the world will be in the next future. Don’t get the wrong idea that he doesn’t know how reality is, only that he prefers to give hope and romance to his men.

There is a lot of religion, politics (that sometime, unfortunately, are the same thing), family and social issue, so much of them that here and there I had the feeling that I was reading an essay, or maybe the brainstorming of the author, like he was trying to decide something, and used his characters to take that decision. There is also a lot of sex, and some purist would question the pairing, it was almost disconcerting leaving a discussion on the pro and cons of being a Roman Catholic rather than an Episcopal, to suddenly being in bed with David and Conner who were snowballing each time they had sex.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/924075.html