Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: You Belong to Me
AUTHOR: Edward Kendrick
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 118 Pages
BLURB:
Corey Byrne loves his family—as long as he only has to see them once a year. Since he’s not out to them, it makes things… tense. Returning to his job at a homeless shelter after Christmas, he finds someone has left him a very expensive present. Soon, he begins to get messages from the anonymous gift giver. Then Corey’s friend Brad is murdered in Corey’s apartment and undercover detective Scott Reed is assigned to protect Corey. As they work together to find the killer, they realize they’re starting to care about each other. However Scott is unwilling to act on his feelings unless Corey comes out to his family and coworkers. As the threats from the stalker intensify, Corey is forced to admit that love is too precious to hide from. Perhaps now is the time to be honest about who he is and accept the possibility of love in return—before it’s too late.
REVIEW:
This was a nifty little story that was more mystery than romance but I can’t say that I was at all disappointed.
We start the story with our main character, Corey, spending Christmas with his family – Mum (yep, I’m Australian), Dad, two brothers and the brothers’ girlfriends. The love that Corey has for his family is evident but at the same time it doesn’t feel comfortable because he’s always aware that he’s keeping a very important secret from them.
Actually Jamie isn’t “out” to anybody except the guys that he hooks up with in the clubs he frequents. I can’t remember the last time I read a book which had a main character residing a fair distance from his family but still living a closeted life with people who will never meet his family members. That was hard to get use to at first, to be honest, but I don’t mean that as a criticism, just an observation.
My only real criticism is that it takes so long for Corey do something about his stalker. What starts as an anonymous Christmas gift very quickly escalates into hand delivered notes, feelings of being watched, creepy phone calls that prove he’s being watched and the stalker breaking into his apartment. At one point I literally groaned out load for Corey to call his brother, the detective! But it’s not until a friend/fuck buddy is found murdered in Corey’s apartment, and the police suspect Corey could be the killer, that he actually asks his brother for help.
Scott, who ends up being Corey’s love interest, isn’t introduced into the story until around 40% but the story had kept me so entertained that I didn’t even care. Scott is an undercover detective who is put in place to catch the killer by pretending to be an ex-lover of Corey’s who has just moved back to town and is looking to rekindle their romance. While their fake romance helps Corey become comfortable with dating a man in public and eventually develops into a real romance, I felt that it was more about Corey growing and taking the steps to allow himself to reveal his sexuality to the important people in his life more than it was about Scott and Corey forming a relationship. And again, that’s not a complaint, just an observation. While, to me at least, the romance felt secondary to the mystery I liked the way it wasn’t rushed but was kind of left unfinished. Unfinished probably isn’t the best word to use because it sounds like the story needed to be longer but it definitely didn’t. My time line might be slightly off but from the time the men meet to the end of the book is only a few weeks. And in the beginning their attention is more focused on catching a killer than getting a boyfriend. So the fact that the story ends with a HFN rather than a HEA felt right as far as I’m concerned.
Aside from a story in an anthology, this is the first Edward Kendrick book that I’ve read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Not sure why I randomly call the MC “Jamie”? My bad 😉