Review by Susan Lee

TITLE: Sole Support
AUTHOR: Kaje Harper
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
BLURB: He can find a use for his lover’s hands…except when he needs help the most.

Kellen is short on cash—at least until his first novel starts to sell—but he has plenty of friends. None of them, unfortunately, share his love of books. For that he turns to IM chats with Mike from his online book group.

Though he manages to coax the shy, socially inept pathologist into a real-time meeting, Kellen has no intention of letting his new friend become more than a casual lover. Shaky finances and ailing mother aside, self-sufficiency is Kellen’s prime directive.

Mike considers himself a nerd of the highest order—short, bespectacled, prone to blurting out the wrong thing at the worst possible time. Meeting Kellen face to face is the biggest risk of his life, and he wonders if they’ll get more body parts together than just their faces.

First meeting leads to first date—first everything for Mike—and soon Kellen’s faced with breaking his just-friends-with-benefits rule. Yet as his elderly mother wanders deeper into senility, Kellen wonders if it’s better to lean on Mike rather than fall.

REVIEW:

Even if I didn’t follow Kaje Harper on Goodreads and didn’t know some of the things she faced this past year, it would have been obvious that Sole Support was a very personal journey for her. It’s impossible to read this and not feel that the person writing it KNOWS intimately about the subject matter.

Mike is smart, socially-awkward, and lonely. He lives with his sister & her husband and spends his time reading books and going online to talk about them.  Kellen is a writer, self-pub’ing his first book, and saddled with the care of his aging, and quickly deteriorating mother. They click over a passion for mystery books and a BUDDY READ (<-that Kaje Harper…she knows her audience! Ha!)…and eventually agree to meet in person.  Being a 37-yr old virgin with deep emotional hurts from a lifetime of teasing, Mike sees only that which is “wrong” about him. But Kellen finds all of those characteristics “right”…charming, endearing, funny, and safe.

The relationship between the two started sweet and I was engaged early on. Kellen was attentive and helped put Mike at ease and I was enjoying their flirtations.  When it became clear that Mike wanted more than the “friends-with-benefits” that Kellen was offering, I started getting worried that someone here was gonna get hurt (Mike, yes…but I was more worried about me!!! J)

The middle of the book dragged a little bit and I found myself frustrated and ANGRY even, at Kellan. It felt like he was using Mike…whenever he wanted/needed comfort or a distraction from his life.  But that’s the thing…that was HONEST and it was exactly what Kellan was doing. He DID need comfort and a distraction from his life.

Kellan’s experience in trying to convince his stubborn and fiercely independent mother that she needed help was aggravating and painful. The author set you deep w/in the character’s feelings so that you were going through it with him. I didn’t recognize this until I came out the other end…worn-out, stretched-out, burnt-out.

Ms. Harper has written a book that FEELS REAL. No real way to distance yourself from it. There are true emotions here and not all are pleasant.  In the end, however, she brings us back to the relationship of our two MC’s and having grown and endured together, it works.

Susan’s Rating:

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Susan Lee is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love
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