Reviewed by Taylor
SERIES: Roads
AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh
BOOKS: 2-ish
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
Slide (Book One, Roads Series)
BLURB: Don’t look back. Don’t you ever look back…
Shy tattoo artist Ash has a troubled past. Years of neglect, drug abuse, and life on the streets have taken their toll, and sometimes it seems the deep, unspoken bond with his lover is the only balm for wounds he doesn’t quite understand.
Chicago paramedic Pete is warmth, love, and strength—things Ash never knew he could have, and never even knew he wanted until Pete showed him. But fate is a cruel, cruel mistress, and when nightmares collide with the present, their tentatively built world comes crashing down.
Traumatic events in Pete’s work life distance him from home, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that Ash has slipped away. Betrayal, secrets, and lies unfold, and when a devastating coincidence takes hold, Pete must fight with all he has to save the love of his life.
REVIEW:
I have no idea how to rate or review this.
Did I love parts? Yes.
Did I hate parts? Yes.
Did I find it confusing? Yes.
Did it have a plot that I found interesting? Yes.
Likes:
*The prologue hooked me right from the start. There was something soft, familiar and relaxing about those opening moments that I fell in love with the characters & the story I was about to read.
*Even though there were flashbacks, I felt they made sense, were straight-forward and I liked that the past was strictly from Ash’s perspective & the present from Pete’s.
*I liked the side characters, despite them not feeling fully realized (more on that later).
*The professions of both characters felt developed, and added to the characters dimensions and personalities. Their jobs weren’t just something they did, but demonstrated Ash’s art, hidden thoughts, passion, and escape. Pete as an EMT showed his caring, thoughtfulness, and patience. The day to day actions at work weren’t boring, the situations moved the plot, and peeled back layers on Pete & Ash’s relationship bit by bit.
*I believed in their connection as a couple. I felt every lustful urging, as well as the moments were they were slow and connecting differently. The moments where they connected such as at the diner looking at Pete’s tattoo were lovely.
Dislikes:
*This is both a like and dislike I guess. I don’t mind long books, in fact, I prefer them sometimes, but I don’t like it when they feel long. This seemed to take me AGES to read, and it’s less than 300 pages.
>I’ll say this is also a like, however, because the reader needs to feel how the characters are slipping. They need to feel how mental illness isn’t often a quick back and forth, but something that can happen day by day right in front of their loved ones, without either realizing how they missed the signs or how bad it’s progressed.
*These two, actually most of the characters, but specifically Pete & Ash, didn’t act consistent. Sometimes they sounded like 14 year olds, others mid-30s, and on the rare occasion their actual age.
Speaking of which, I get that Ash had been not educated in the traditional way, but I just couldn’t buy some of his cluelessness behavior. He’d been around Ellie and her family for years and on the better path, as well. You mean to tell me he’d NEVER heard of a Tylenol? Ever?
*What is UP with Joe? I got a shipper vibe between him & Charlie at times, but it was all meandering and confusing. His last scenes and mention in the book befuddled me because it seemed to come out of Ash’s thought process at random. Is there going to be a sequel with him or something? If not, why is this all this there?
*I HATED, HATED, HATED Pete’s reaction to Ash after returning home to find him on the couch. I just can’t. The blaming, self-righteousness, bratty behavior made me want to junk punch him. When in the hell did it become Ash’s responsibility to jump when Pete said to? Who kicks someone because they didn’t hear their phone? When it’s their mother’s own fault, who blames their boyfriend who was unaware? OMG just go jump in an active volcano, dude.
After that…I don’t know. I couldn’t get back on Pete’s side. It was just one ridiculous thought or action after the other. None of it made sense and I just found it depressing. It also started veering towards over-the-top territory for me, and I wished it had stayed a bit simpler.
But I thought the ‘sliding’ of Ash (and Pete) was realistic; I believe they will work out, and I guess overall I enjoyed this.
Taylor rates it – 
BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press
Marked (Missing Moment from Slide – Book 1.5, Roads Series)
BLURB: It’s been six months since Ash shuffled into Pete’s life and turned his world upside down, and six months since they sat in an all-night diner plotting Ash’s theoretical solution for Pete’s faded, botched tattoo. Pete has just about given up hope of Ash ever fulfilling his promise when one day the end of a long shift finds Ash waiting for him.
Tonight is the night.
Ash is ready, and it seems the time has come for him to leave his mark on Pete in more ways than he ever imagined.
REVIEW:
Gahhh, this was sexy, adorable, and a perfect little interlude into Ash and Peter’s lives as a new couple. This short takes place somewhere in the middle of their relationship, probably late 2007 or early 2008, and the first novel in the Roads series spans 2007 to 2009.
Ash is a tattoo artist and Pete has asked him to cover up and fix an old tattoo that he’s no longer happy with and wants modified. Ash takes pride in his art; it’s personal to him, and even more personal that he’s working on his boyfriend’s skin. Skin that Ash deems the model for perfection.
Ash starts off tattooing Pete at their shared apartment, and the intimacy of the moment turns the vibe in the room sexual. It’s heated and somewhere along the way, things slow down, get serious, and some realizations are made.
Warms my heart.
BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press
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Taylor is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.
To read all her reviews, click the link: TAYLOR’S REVIEWS
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