Reviewed by Rhonda
This is a Series Review of Trager Family Secrets (Books 1, 2 & 3)
AUTHOR: Laurie Boris
PUBLISHER: Self Published
SERIES REVIEW:
I really enjoyed this series and the plot twists that occurred along the way. Ms. Boris has a winner on her hands, and I highly recommend this series! The focus on different parts of the family’s lives throughout the course of the series provided a lot of different viewpoints and storylines. I look forward to reading other works by Ms. Boris in the future!
SERIES RATING: 
TITLE: The Picture of Cool (Trager Family Secrets #1)
LENGTH: 49 Pages
BLURB:
Television producer Charlie Trager spends his days working with beautiful women on a daytime talk show. But underneath his cool façade, there’s a hollow spot in his heart, waiting for the right man to ease his loneliness. Then he meets the show’s next guest, a handsome young politician with a bad case of nerves—and a secret that could turn both their lives upside down
REVIEW:
Welcome to the Trager Family Secrets series starting with this very short novella introducing us to Charlie Trager and Joshua Goldberg. While Charlie is out and proud, Joshua is married with children and so far in the closet I think he found Narnia. For some reason, Josh believes you can’t be a gay politician. I can’t really tell you much here without including spoilers as the story is so short but I can say once they get past the nerves they connect with each other pretty well despite the differences in how they live their lives and the pressures of family and profession. This is a good introduction to the series, and a quick lunch break read!
RATING: 3.5 Stars
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TITLE: Don’t Tell Anyone (Trager Family Secrets #2)
LENGTH: 232 pages
BLURB:
Liza’s mother-in-law once called her a godless hippie raised by wolves. Now, after five years of marriage to her elder son, five years of disapproval and spite, the family accidentally learns that Estelle has a fatal illness. And Estelle comes to her with an impossible request. A horrified Liza refuses but keeps the question from her husband and his brother. As the three children urge Estelle to consider treatment, their complicated weave of family secrets and lies begins to unravel. Can they hold their own lives together long enough to help Estelle with hers?
REVIEW:
This installment of the Trager Family Secrets is about Charlie’s brother Adam and his wife Liza and the sudden tragic illness of their mother Estelle. While happily married to Adam, Liza has never let the animosity between her mother-in-law and herself get to her or affect her life with Adam and her friendship with Charlie whom she has known since college days. Until one night when they get a call from the mother-in-law’s neighbor that Estelle has been rushed to the hospital after collapsing. They rush to her side, only to find out that Estelle had been keeping secrets about her health. She has breast cancer, which is advanced and certain to end her life quickly unless she takes the drastic steps needed to fight to survive.
Unable to find a reason to offer her to get her motivated to do so, Adam tells his mother that Liza is pregnant and Estelle pulls herself from the brink of death so that she may live long enough to see her first grandchild be born. Anyone who has dealt with this disease knows that the cure can be as bad as the disease itself and takes a lot of family support and care to overcome. Even though there is no real friendship between Liza and Estelle, who at one point even told Liza she thought she was raised by a pack of wolves, it is Liza that becomes Estelle’s main caretaker. It is to Liza that Estelle makes a shocking request that forces Liza to keep secrets from her husband and causes more stress upon her already overburdened shoulders.
It is nice to see the two women become closer and begin to understand each other more but I have to say I am disappointed in Adam and Charlie as they seem not to be as involved with their mother’s care as they could be. In fact, I wish I could have given Adam a couple of good slaps to get him out of his childish behavior at times. Liza, thank heavens, has the support of her friend Cara, a nurse who was able to offer support when it was needed as well as a few extras that really helped Liza when she needed it, or rather when Estelle needed it.
With so much going on in Liza’s life, trying to complete her schooling and dealing with Estelle’s illness, her husband Adam’s petulance and refusal to come to grips with what is happening around him causes major problems in their personal relationship. They are going to have to be stronger than ever to fix their relationship and go back to being the people that fell so madly in love with each other.
RATING: 4.5 Stars
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TITLE: Playing Charlie Cool (Trager Family Secrets #3)
LENGTH: 253 pages
BLURB:
Television producer Charlie Trager knows he’s lucky to have a successful career and good friends and family who support him. The man he loves, however, is not so lucky. Joshua Goldberg suffers the spite of an ex-wife gunning to keep him from their two children…and maybe Charlie. Determined not to let Joshua go, Charlie crafts a scheme that could remove the obstacles to their relationship…or destroy their love forever.
REVIEW:
We are back to the relationship of Charlie and Joshua. As we re-join our boys, Joshua is facing the media to inform them of his pending divorce from his wife Deidre, as well as announcing that he is gay. Coming out of the closet and getting an amicable divorce from Deidre, in what was supposed to be a planned sequence of events, gets hairy when Joshua one more time asks Charlie to stay his silent, unseen partner due to pressure from his father who is a senator. His father tells him that if he wants to get elected to congress, he has to go it alone without his male boyfriend on the campaign trail with him. Added drama arrives when ex-wife Deidre who was all for the plan suddenly flips on Josh and goes from all for it, to not on your life buddy. She even goes so far as to keep his children away from him. Now what made her do that? What is it about family that they think they know better than you do about what you want?
Charlie really tries to make Joshua happy by not putting any pressure on him and agreeing to the new plan but communication and bad timing all the way around starts putting a strain on the relationship when it goes from clandestine meetings to phone calls to an occasional email. In other words, things are grim in the romance department. Lucky for Joshua, Charlie isn’t willing to lose Josh and will do anything to fix the various situations that are keeping them apart.
There are some real life issues here that Ms. Boris handles very nicely and I would love to tell you more…but I have been accused of spoilers so you will just have to trust me when I say that although it is not full of scintillating hot male on male action, it does examine some of the difficulties that LGBT professional people face when they try to publicly jump over the fence from straight to gay.
One note, the author says that each book is a standalone. I feel like the first two definitely are but you really should read the first two books before reading this third book.
RATING: 4.0 Stars
BUY LINKS:
I have book 3 – looks like i need the others!!