Reviewed by Donna

TITLE: A Twist and Two Balls

SERIES: With A Kick #1

AUTHOR: Clare London

PUBLISHER: Jocular Press

LENGTH: 66 Pages

BLURB:

Eduardo Mancini is going to be a star of the London stage and screen. Or that was the plan. His alter ego Eddy March hasn’t got further than the chorus and a bit part in a TV series. His parents aren’t supportive, his agent can’t place his particular skills, and he’s finding it hard to hang onto his young dreams. Things go from bad to worse when he’s late for an important audition, hasn’t got enough to money to pay the taxi fare, and is chased across the streets of Soho by the irate driver.

Eddy reaches what he believes is sanctuary – With A Kick, a store where ice creams are blended with alcohol and imagination, and where his friends can help him. But Nuri the taxi driver is persistent in his steady pursuit, above and beyond the money he’s owed. Despite their very different characters and background, Eddy and Nuri’s relationship goes from a complete unknown to a wary balancing act. There are still mistakes to be made, and hurdles to clear. And both of them have to admit that their life so far hasn’t gone the way they planned.

But maybe being caught by Nuri was just what Eddy’s career needed – both for his job and his heart.

REVIEW:

This is the first book I’ve picked up by Clare London and I quickly came to the realization that I’ve been missing out.

This story kicks off a brand new series, which I understand will be made up of books written by both Clare London and Sue Brown. The series, which is entitled – With A Kick, centers around an ice cream shop of the same name. An ice cream shop that caters for adults and children alike where the owner and creator of the frosty delicacies is always on the look out for new inspiration.

But he is not the star of A Twist and Two Balls. This book is the rather heartwarming, never give up on your dreams tale of Eddy and Nuri who somehow manage to work their way into a relationship after Eddy tries to run off without paying his cab fare. Nuri, the tenacious cabbie refuses to allow Eddy to escape and ends up trailing him through the streets and eventually into the ice cream shop.

When I first started reading I found the story a little hard to get into, in fact I was pretty certain that I was going to, not suffer my way through it, but awkwardly push through perhaps. That feeling lasted for maybe the first few pages but it didn’t take too long before I was totally into the story. I’ve come to the conclusion that my problem was with Eddy, or Eduardo as we’re first introduced. The story is told from his perspective and I think it’s not the writing that I found awkward but Eduardo’s personality. He’s simply an awkward person, twitchy like some sort of nervous animal and it becomes evident pretty early on that he’s not comfortable in his own skin. He’s an actor, a melodramatic actor, Nuri would say, and he’s created a persona, has tried to become the person he thinks he needs to be to achieve his goals of fame. And it’s not making him happy.

Nuri is rather mysterious in that he’s slow to reveal information about himself. He comes with a crazy extended family that I gave up keeping track of, but that was part of the fun. Considering the short length of this book, the author did a brilliant job of incorporating so many interesting secondary characters into the story. Along with his relations Nuri brings happiness into Eddy’s uninspired life. I can’t begin to explain how much I absolutely love these two men together. Nuri calms Eddy’s franticness. Saying he brought peace to Eddy’s life sounds completely corny but that’s what it felt like to me. With Nuri by his side Eddy morphed from a character I found somewhat grating and borderline annoying to one part of a couple that I could have happily read about for days.

I said that this book is a “never give up on you dreams” tale and it is. But with a big dose of reality thrown in. It tells us that just because we can’t have our dream right now, we shouldn’t give up. It tells us that our dreams may be within reach if we just shift our perspective. And it will probably tell you other things that it didn’t tell me because it’s just one of those stories.

Just FYI, the sex in the story is fairly non-explicit, for those of you who don’t like that. But I can promise that there is plenty of hot sexiness between these two men. I freakin’ love an author who can deliver a book, especially when it’s only a short story, with very little actual sex yet still leave me feeling the heat generated between the characters.

I rarely rate a story this short any higher than 4 stars because I’d say nine times out of ten I’m left feeling that there isn’t enough depth or it’s too rushed or there’s just too much story missing. But with A Twist and Two Balls I didn’t experience any of those problems. I loved this story and I can’t wait to see what flavor comes next in this promising new series.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

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