Reviewed by Dee

TITLE: New Lease of Life

AUTHOR: Lillian Francis

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 220 Pages

BLURB:         

Phillip used to laugh a lot, back when his friends called him Pip. However the good deed that left him hospitalized not only marred his body, it stripped him of his good humor too. Ever since, he has pushed his friends away and shut out the world. Donating his vintage clothing to a charity shop should have been the final act in a year-long campaign to sever the links with the man Pip used to be, but the stranger on his doorstep awakens feelings in Pip that he hasn’t experienced since the incident that left him angry at the world and reliant on the cold metal of the hideous hospital-issue crutch.

Colby forces his way into Pip’s life, picking at the scab of his past. Colby isn’t interested in Pip’s money or his expensive address. He has only one goal: to make Pip smile again. With every moment in Pip’s presence, Colby chips away at the walls Pip has built around himself. Pip knows it’s impossible to fight his attraction with Colby’s sunny disposition casting light into the darkness in his soul.

REVIEW:      

It took me a good part of this story to warm to Phillip’s character. This will likely work in one of two ways for readers. It will either endear them to him more or they’ll become bored and give up. Something, as much as it pains me to say, I may have done had I not received this book to review.

A great deal of this story revolves around the clothes that initially brought these two men together. If you like hearing about tweed, vintage clothing, and all their glorious fabrics and colours you’ll more than get your fill in this story.

Colby came across as a very mature, generous and caring human being. I had no idea how old he was until near the very end of the story, something that took me by surprise, as his maturity was years ahead of his biological age. Not to mention I also then learned he was 6 years Pip’s junior.

There’s a lot of angst in this story, given Pip, aka Pip Squeak (an endearment I struggled with) was such a self-loathing man. Something I also never fully understood, but I guess we all deal with trauma in different ways.

Around the 87% we finally get some heat. And in the words of the characters, it was downright ‘filthy’.

A glossary is provided at the beginning of this story, something I personally could have done without. Why? Because most explanations were for one-liners and nothing pivotal to the plot. When I read three explanations about Rugby in the glossary, I wrongly thought Rugby would be part of the story and was a tad disappointed when nothing of the sort eventuated.

An observation – as a person used to UK dialogue I found it extremely odd that the word ‘arse’ was used copiously yet all other terminology was in U.S. dialogue. Color, traveled, etc.

Once I warmed to Pip’s character this was a very enjoyable read. I recommend it to lovers of the MM romance genre, who like stories that focus more on angst and relationship development than sex.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon