Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE: Tigers and Devils

SERIES: Tigers and Devils #1

AUTHOR: Sean Kennedy

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 376 pages

BLURB:

The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other’s lives forever.

Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, the home of Australian Rules football and mecca for serious fans. There, players are treated like gods—until they do something to fall out of public favour. This year, the public is taking Declan to task for suffering injuries outside his control, so Simon’s support is a bright spot.

But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan’s homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.

REVIEW:

Wow! How have I managed to not read this book? I’ve seen it on mentioned Facebook and Goodreads, I know I’ve looked at it, but I’ve never read it…. When this months theme week was determined, I remembered this one and grabbed it and I am so glad I did! What’s even better is I see there are SEQUELS!! Yeah! So yah, I really liked this book.

Simon Murray is an arty wanker (according to Declan), living in Melbourne Australia, working for a company the produces a local artsy film festival. He is an obsessive football fan, that would be Australian Football, which I know is not soccer, American football, or rugby! Simon and his best friend are followers of different teams, as are Simon’s brother and parents, much to his fathers disgust. Apparently this is a BIG thing, determining which team you follow is like choosing a spouse! So Simon and Roger (the best friend) go to local games, and watch away games together. Simon is a bit anti-social, tends to dress in black, and is fairly snarky. I loved him…. Roger and Fran (Roger’s wife and Simon’s other best friend) con him in to going to a party (Gasp! Socializing?), where Simon ends up hiding in the back garden. There he overhears a conversation where someone is attacking Declan Tyler, one of the best players in the league, who plays for the Tasmanian Devils. Declan has been out due to injuries and hasn’t contributed much recently. Simon, who is not a fan of the team, but is a fan of Declan, approaches the group defending Declan to them. Defending/insulting, it’s all such a fine line you know. What he says is “Look, I know Tyler comes across like a bit of an arrogant prick, but you can’t say he’s not a great player. When he’s not injured, of course.” Guess who is standing behind him? You got it! Declan Tyler himself….

This brings together Simon the arty wanker, fan of the Richmond Tigers, and Declan Tyler, injured star of the Tasmanian Devils. Declan is gay, but very much in the closet. Simon hasn’t seen the inside of a closet in a looooong time. This causes some serious drama between the two of them, as they attempt to have a relationship. Of course it doesn’t stay hidden, it all comes out, and blows up. They are together and apart several times throughout the story. Roger and Fran, Simon’s best friends are mixed up in it, as are Abe and Lisa, Declan’s best friends. Simon’s relationship with Declan nearly ruins his friendship with Roger. Lisa attempts to help Simon navigate how to be football players girlfriend. It all goes to shit repeatedly. I was totally tied up in this story, brought to the edge of tears several times. Even at the end of the book I wasn’t convinced they should be or could be together. Even knowing it’s a romance novel that I expected to have a happy ending, I couldn’t see how it COULD be happy. But it was! I loved the ups and downs of the story, I loved the additional characters, even the ones that negatively impacted Simon and Declan.

It’s a nice long book, coming in at 376 pages, and took me a couple of days to read. That was great. Sean truly took his time developing the characters and the story. I’m going to assume this is where he lives and that he’s a football fan. I bought every bit of it. I actually stopped at one point early in the book, and Googled Australian Rules football so I could learn a bit more about it. I can’t tell you when the last time I did that was! I loved the Australian dialect, I did have to look up a couple of words too. That makes me happy, when I care enough about a story to look up words and phrases. Damn…. this was just a good book. You know, as I’m writing this, I realized there is almost no sex in it! Which apparently wasn’t an issue for me, since I just realized it! The relationship between Simon and Declan was just so good I didn’t need it to be graphic.

So the writing was fantastic, Sean is either a football fan or one hell of a researcher. The longer length was perfect, plenty of time for character and plot development. I didn’t miss the lack of sex scenes! I loved the dialect, I really got that this was Australia. Great story, great lead characters, great additional characters, great ending, I can’t wait to read the next ones! Yup, seriously a good book.

RATING:

BUYLINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

ARe