Reviewed by Vicki (Tori)
SERIES: Thorne and Dash
AUTHOR: Silvia Violet
PUBLISHER: Silvia Violet Books
LENGTH:
RELEASE DATE: April 25th, 2017
BLURB:
Marc longs for a grand romance, but he doubts he’ll ever be that lucky. Then he meets Darius, an arrogant tailor who pushes all his buttons. When Darius offers him a job, Marc hesitates—he needs a direction for the future, not another man who doesn’t believe in relationships.
Darius lives by a few unbreakable rules: never sleep with employees, fashion should be simple, and romance is for fools. Marc, with his shimmer sweater collection, makes him want to break every single one.
They quickly give in to desire, but Darius wants to protect himself and Marc refuses to repeat past mistakes. It’s only when they let go of assumptions, that love has a chance to take hold.
REVIEW:
I’m so happy to be back in Atlanta for Darius and Marc’s story! I was hoping we’d find out how their flirtation went…. We met Marc in the first book in the series, he’s Dash’s friend and fellow rent boy, but Marc took off with a lover to California. We met Darius probably in book one as well, when Thorne goes to his shop for a suit. The two actually met in…. oh no! I can’t remember now if it was book one or two. Damn, I’m sorry! But anyway, Marc goes in with Riley (formerly known as Dash) to pick up a suit for Thorne and is entranced by Darius, the lovely, but extremely grumpy Brit! This book partially mirrors what happens in the main Thorne and Dash books, but from Marc and Darius’s perspective, so some of what we see in this book we have seen before. But mostly this is the story of Darius and Marc.
So Darius is British, having moved to the US with his parents while still in school. He does return to his homeland at one point, but eventually comes back and settles in Atlanta. He is a tailor by family trade, and starts to work for a shop owned by a woman named Clarice, eventually taking over the shop after she retires. The two do remain close friends. Darius burns through several assistants, having bad luck with them, and making bad choices. He’s also had issues in his love life. Both of these things have left him a grumpy bastard. He’s actually fairly hard to like, and even by the end of the book I was only grudgingly on his side.
Marc is a free spirit, uncommitted in his education, his career, and his love life. He’s had family drama and relationship drama, and seems externally happy as a rent boy, but kinda wishes he could do something else with his life. He has some skill as a costumer, and has an interest in fashion, but never completed his education. He just seems to be flailing around, as this book starts. He and Riley enter Darius’s tailor shop, and Marc seems equally fascinated and horrified by Darius, but when he finds out he needs an assistant, he decides to apply.
The two then begin a very odd relationship! They work together, but Darius is a total asshole to Marc. They fuck, but have no emotional connection. That was a bit of a struggle for me to accept, I tend to like to see some emotion in my couples, at times it’s hard to tell if they even like each other. But the sex scenes were damn hot I will say!
We see glimpses of Riley and Thorne, as they have epic meltdowns, and reunite, only to do it again.
Overall I enjoyed this book, as I have the others in the series. I did find the two men frustrating, I didn’t really like Darius until well in to the story. Marc is a sweetheart, and I’m honestly not sure why he stuck around as long as he did! I liked the story, it’s not overly complex, it’s just about the two men finding their way to happiness. Both as lovers, and in their business plans. I would have liked to have seen a little more positive emotion from them, well really Darius, as I said he’s a hard one to like. I will also say he didn’t feel particularly British to me, except when he swore. Which he does frequently! I had a discussion at work about whether a man who had grown up in England, moved to the US as a teenager, and only returned for a short time would use more or less British-isms, and the consensus was that he would probably be fairly Americanized by that point. I’m still not sure. Then there are the sex scenes… Wow. Lots of hot fucking! Silvia Violet knows how to write a good sex scene. There was actually a good balance of them for me, some of her books can be heavy on the sex. This one was better in that regard. I do tend to find issues in her character’s voices, Darius not feeling British enough, the characters in her historical books didn’t sound very historical, but those are minor things. I really do enjoy her books, she’s a go to author for me. The Thorne and Dash books are very good, and this one is a nice addition.
This is a spin-off from the Thorne and Dash series, you could probably read it as a stand-alone book. Although Riley and Thorne do appear quite frequently in this book, and we do see their drama. If you don’t know who they are that might be a little weird. But you could read this one, and if you like it, go get the others. They are enjoyable as well, especially the first one! If you have read the others you’ll enjoy seeing Marc and Darius again, as well as the glimpses of Riley and Thorne and their issues, only from the outside now.
I liked it!
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