Reviewed by Cinnamon
![Conning Colin: A Gay Romantic Comedy by [Winters, Elsa, Vance, Brad]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51-XUwx1DYL.jpg)
TITLE: Conning Colin
AUTHOR: Brad Vance and Elsa Winters
PUBLISHER: Zirconia Publishing, Inc.
LENGTH: 60 000 words
RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2017
BLURB:
“Whatever else is or isn’t true, I just lost my cherry to the hottest man in the world.”
Colin O’Neill has been in a rut for some time now. Whether it’s his acting career or his newly-discovered identity as a gay man, he can’t seem to get any traction in his job or his love life. What he needs is a change. What he needs is a shock to his system. What he needs is Hamilton.
“Your first time… You ready for it?”
Hamilton. Dillinger. Harrison. He goes by different names to fulfill a world of different fantasies, but he’s most popular as Hamilton, the escort who acts and dresses like he’s worth a million bucks. Few people know the man behind the character, Henry Davis. He’s yet another New Yorker living on the financial edge, cobbling together jobs in the sex industry to make a living. Henry wants nothing more than to drop the facade, to live in cargo shorts and an old Mets t-shirt, working as a screenwriter, to be free from playing the part of the high class lover. But first, he’s got to write the perfect screenplay…
“I had a breakthrough recently. Being with you has been… life-changing. I realized one day that I didn’t have to be me, you know?”
As “Hamilton” guides Colin into becoming a confident gay man, Henry is inspired by Colin’s journey to write his screenplay. Meanwhile, Colin’s transformation makes him more confident as an actor, landing him bigger and bigger parts. Then a Hollywood studio wants Colin for a lead role, and magically, the part seems like it was written just for him…
Now Colin and Henry are on a collision course. What will Colin think when he finds out that Hamilton is really ordinary Henry, the struggling artist? Will Colin feel conned when he finds that the perfect Hollywood part contains all the secrets that Colin confided in “Hamilton”?
REVIEW:
Conning Colin is a fun, light rom-com but still has Brad Vance’s signature style. We see glimpses of all his specialties from master manipulation to some seriously hot smut. I truly enjoyed reading him again. He has a way with words that is unique and quite addicting. He has a powerful writing style with great portrayal and humor that make his books memorable. I really don’t want to spoil anything. Let me just say that this is a masterfully structured very well built story with thought provoking inner monologues and two talented guys who find their lives intermingled in more levels than they expected. At first I wasn’t sure where we were going and it took me a while to get into the story but by the time it happened I was hooked. The plotlines just came together beautifully and I was glued to my Kindle till the last page.This is not your everyday romance novel right off the conveyor belt. You get twists and turns and thoughts that will make you stop… and think. The characters and their characters are well portrayed and our MCs fit perfectly together. They are seemingly so different but as we go along and we get to know them better we see how similar they are, how much alike they actually behave and feel. They also bring out the best of the other and through all the heartbreak and conflict they come out of it strong and real. One of my favorite parts is how we get various scenes from their pasts showing us a little more each time, revealing a few episodes of their lives so we are able to put together the puzzle pieces and create the whole background story as everything falls into their right place. Every piece of info adds to the whole picture and we understand more and more.This is an exciting, thought provoking and very entertaining story. Highly recommended.
RATING: 
BUY LINK:
His ego is repulsive if you follow Brad Vance’s blog. I don’t particularly like that he doesn’t seem to learn from his own mistakes, and doesn’t seem to read his own previous posts. He naturally ignored my recommendation that he do so. Anyway, as a result of following him as a person, I never read beyond a glimpse of his work, an earlier book of his, which I’d found somewhere for free and was interested so I began to follow his blog. I quickly lost interest in buying anything from him.
Just wanted to point out that this is a co-written book, and Mr. Vance chose not to acknowledge that fact when he promoted its release from his blog. So how much of it is his work and how much is Elsa Winters’?