Reviewed by Elizabetta
SERIES: Bannon’s Gym, #1
AUTHOR: Cat Grant
PUBLISHER: Cat Grant Books
LENGTH: 130 pages
BLURB:
Danny Bannon and Eddie Roscoe have been fighting in and out of the ring for more than fifteen years, held together by mutual attraction and small-town ties, yet kept apart by a shared tragedy that continues to haunt them. Their steady on-again off-again is shaken up by the arrival of Tom Delaney, a teenage runaway trying to escape his tense home situation and his punch-happy dad.
In no time, the scrawny homeless kid has shown himself to be a boxing prodigy, and building him up brings Danny and Eddie closer than they’ve been in ages. It seems that the three of them, plus Eddie’s mother, Gloria, are forming a new family unit, much tighter than anything Tom experienced in his difficult past.
But Tom’s politically influential father isn’t the only person he left behind. When his mother shows up at Eddie and Gloria’s diner with a shiner and a haunted look in her eyes, Tom is hopeful for her future. But when that hope is snuffed out, Tom is ready to turn his new fighting skills to a deadly purpose: get revenge on his abusive father or die trying.
It’s up to his surrogate big brothers, Danny and Eddie, to put their differences and their painful history aside to prevent another tragic ending.
REVIEW:
Black Dog takes place in a small, California coastal town and is divided between Bannon’s sports gym and the diner owned by Eddie and his moms. When eighteen-year-old Tom shows up in the diner alley beaten, bruised and fighting another homeless person for his belongings, Eddie steps into more than just breaking up a fight. He sees a lost boy and takes him in, offers him a job in the diner to get him off the street.
Tom carries hurts deeper than his bruises though, and it’s clear he has an inner anger that he needs to burn off.
Eddie, an ex-Marine, used to train at Bannon’s gym but he and Danny, gym owner and trainer, had a falling out a few months back. When Tom gets interested in training at the gym, this brings Eddie and Danny back together. Maybe they’ll clear up the guilt and anger they’ve both been carrying. Maybe three guys in need will be able to help each other out. (I have to add that this is not a menage story, Ed and Dan have a long history and Tom, though he is gay, is purely under their mentorship.) It becomes clear that Tom has a talent for mixed martial arts and with good training, he could amount to something in the sport.
This is well written. The depiction of the constant damp, gray days colors the mood, and the action moves along at a good pace. Eddie and Danny are the typical communication-phobic guys, and Eddie comes off as a bit melodramatic at times. If you can accept that they pretty immediately focus on helping Tom, then the story will work from that viewpoint — they are two nice guys who know about life’s knocks and want to help someone in need.
Basically, this is a story about domestic abuse (some violence is depicted) and as it unfolds we find out alcohol abuse factors in too. It is about the fight to overcome the stranglehold of these abuses. It is about making a family where you can. For these issues, I’d recommend this.
I did have some problems though… the changing POV’s between Eddie’s first person, and Tom and Danny’s third person is… weird. I can’t figure why the author chose to change Eddie’s vantage, the first person didn’t really help things, imho, and it all just felt awkward. Eddie’s and Danny’s romance is not really central to the story though they have their hot moments; there is a lot going on in the plot. Also, the plotting is fairly pat, everything is sketched out neatly and there is a predictable (and welcome) resolution at the end.
But, this is a feel good story with some cool martial arts action thrown in for good measure. I like how the training is shown to teach confidence and control; fighting for it’s own sake is not condoned. This is a lesson that Tom has to learn as he deals with his anger. I’m rounding my rating up to 4 stars for this alone, but this is really somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. A good start to a series based around Bannon’s gym, I’ll gladly return for more.
BUY LINKS:Amazon