Bastards and Pretty Boys is a contemporary romance at 108 pages. It’s told in first-person viewpoint, and it may dazzle those readers who complain about the pedestrian writing to be found in eBooks. This author writes like a poet with short, vivid phrases, pared down to their essence, that engage our five senses.

Here is her description of one of the characters who is pulling weeds on page 30. “The tough flex and twitch of his chest muscles beneath a fine spray of black hair. His hard, straining arms with their rise of cable-like tendons and ropy veins. The shift and glide of his back muscles, more delicate but no less arresting than a sudden bulge of biceps. The short stubble on Booker’s face glistened faintly in the sunlight as tiny drops of sweat and water became lodged there. Some of his soft curls stuck to his forehead and temples and nape.”

Her sex scenes are hot, original, and detailed. But she’s not just a good stylist. Her story is strongly plotted and a real page-turner. I predict that many readers will read it straight through as I did, growing more and more involved until they reach its satisfying conclusion.

The story has a slightly slow beginning with Charles hosting an afternoon at his lake-side cottage in Wisconsin with guests that include his ex-wife (now a friend) and his unfaithful boyfriend. However, the appearance of mysterious and gorgeous neighbor Booker will grab the reader into the story. Charles soon realizes that he wants to break off with the possessive Kenneth and get together with Booker who is a far better person. However, Booker has a shocking secret in his past that may threaten their future together. How can Charles turn his back on the man with whom he’s falling in love?

Val for AReCafe ( )

It’s not much the story that made an interesting reading of Bastards and Pretty Boys for me, but the characters. First of all, there is a countercurrent development of them, the pretty boy is the bastard and the stronger man in the relationship, and the hunky man is the one needing protection.

Charles has just bought a cottage on the lake and he wants to spend a week alone and relaxing. I think Charles has his life a bit too full: a divorce and an ex-wife that wants still to lead his life, even if with good intentions (it happens when your ex-wife is a cop) and a relationship that it’s not going in the direction Charles hoped. Truth be told, Charles is not exactly a perfect man who is suffering from the mistakes of other people, I didn’t always like his attitude: for example with his lover’s son, a kid who is suffering for the divorce of his parents, and also for the new relationship of his father with Charles, something he doesn’t understand since no one cared to explain the situation to him. Charles is not sympathetic, I even felt like he was annoyed.

Both Charles than Kenneth have not an easy relationship with themselves. Charles is still not at ease with being gay, and he almost resents the fact to be too pretty, like it’s a “gay” birthmark; he thinks that Carolyn, his ex-wife, even if she has accepted the reason of their divorce, still doesn’t like for him to be “too” gay, but I think he is reflecting his own perception of the situation: it’s Charles himself that doesn’t want to be labelled “gay” and for this reason he is all right with a relationship with Kenneth, since Kenneth doesn’t seem gay… Being with him, Charles can’t pretend that he is not so gay.

Same reason why he is attracted by Booker, his neighbour: Booker doesn’t seem gay, at first Charles thinks he is straight, but despite this, he is nevertheless attracted by him. When he discovers that Booker is gay, it’s even better: not only Booker doesn’t look gay, he is mainly a bottom in bed, so that Charles is even more reassured in his masculinity. Booker seems really the perfect man, and even his past experience in prison (for marijuana detention) is not something too bothering to Charles’ eyes.

Truth be told, I would have been satisfied with the story like that, the crime subplot regarding Booker and his stalker felt a bit estranged, like something the author needed to add to wrap up the story. It was not bad, even if the unexpected connection between Booker and Charles was a bit too pulled, but in the end it was not what remained of the book in my mind. Probably what was more particular, and interesting, was the atmosphere of the book, there was a stilling sensation, something I associated with the lake and the place; the setting was not an hustle and bustle holiday location, it was more like sleeper little town. Actually the whole neighbouring thing with Charles spying Booker and Booker suddenly appearing, was even a little creepy; in the end the story is more simple than what the growing expectations made you believe, but that was exactly what made the story interesting and original.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002WB0ZSC/?tag=elimyrevandra-20