Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE: Hollywood Bound
SERIES: Gin & Jazz #1
AUTHOR: Morticia Knight
PUBLISHER: Totally Bound
LENGTH: 189 pages
BLURB: Sweet and innocent nineteen year-old Jack has loved the older and more street wise Nick from almost the first time he met him. Nick has taken care of him ever since Jack arrived in New York after he was beaten and thrown out of the boy’s orphanage for messing around with one of the guys there. They share a passion for silent films and have dreams of heading west to make their fortunes building sets for the studios. If only Nick felt the same passion for Jack, and wasn’t already engaged to a gal back in Philly.

Nick’s temper sometimes gets the best of him, but that’s only because he worries about Jack – Nick is all the poor kid has. But he’s also terrified about the way he’s been feeling towards Jack lately. They’re the kinds of feelings he should be having for his fiancé—Penelope—and never for a man. His only goal is to get them both to Hollywood, where he’s sure they’ll be rolling in the dough in no time, and where everything will all work out the way it should.

Hollywood isn’t exactly what they’d thought it would be. There are plenty of gin joints, jazz, money, parties and sex—but everything comes with a hefty price. Everyone they meet—from Trixie Fox, the ditzy up and coming starlet, to Bernie, the foreman who gets them their first studio job—seems to have a hidden agenda. Can the newfound love between Jack and Nick survive the tawdry mess that makes up the glitz and glamour of the celluloid kingdom, or will their own secrets tear them apart forever?

Reader Advisory: This book contains mild BDSM elements, drug use, and sex-for-hire scenes.  Please note, this is the first book of a three book serial and is part of a continuing storyline best read in sequence.

REVIEW:

Nothing gets to me more than a good ol’ historical romance.  When done right, it is a gateway into a life that I’ll never get a chance to live.  A chance to explore a world that will become our own, but is so different than what know.  Just as complicated, but complications of different sizes and shapes.  I love those complications.

Hollywood Bound had more than its share of complications.  Jake loves Nick, but Nick is straight.  Nick is engaged, but would rather never see is intended ever again.   And the pair have high aspirations, but the only way to pay their dues on that yellow-brick road to The Hollywood Dream will cost blood, love, and tiny bits of their futures.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to money–and the things they are willing to sell to keep their heads above water.  But complications be damned, Nick will sell his soul to keep Jake happy and safe.  And Jake, well, he’s finding that his dreams could cost more than he’s willing to give.

“Jack sighed heavily. He longed for so much all of a sudden, and felt selfish and greedy for feeling that way. He was already so fortunate to have a man like Nick, even if Nick did have a hard time sharing his feelings. And here he was, all the way on the other side of the country in Hollywood—so close to his dreams. Never could he have imagined being in this place when he’d been kicked out of the orphanage three years before. Yet he ached to be on the other side of the wall across the street, and for Nick to be by his side always. He only hoped he could have both. “

I’m of two minds when it comes to this story.  On one side, it was really good at showing the slow slide from celluloid dreams to gritty reality.  Jake goes from wide-eyed child to disillusioned man, and Nick from staunch belief in himself and his Jake, to a man who can’t find anything to believe in.  I couldn’t help but enjoy, in some perverse way, the slow degradation of their beliefs and hopes.  It’s the truth of the Hollywood Dream when it is dragged out into daylight.  Dashed hopes, tarnished morals, and a willingness to give up everything to have a chance at being somebody.  This story doesn’t pull its punches, and you feel the painful effect of every one of those blows.

But, unfortunately, there was little there to make it worth taking those blows.  I’m usually willing to suffer through quite a bit in order to get the payout, but this book kept tripping all over some of my major dislikes in stories.  As a consequence I was alternating between tense and frustrated for a majority of the story, and that is just not a fun way to spend an evening.  At least, not for me.

I really can’t stand cheating in stories, and when it is one of my MCs that is doing it, I just want to start throwing things.  I think it is very well written, how Nick makes his choices, and all the consequences that come from those choices, but it rubbed me the wrong way.  Someone who doesn’t have my dislike would probably enjoy this more than I did, but I can’t crawl into someone else’s head.

The relationship between Jack and Nick also alternated between extremely hot, and highly unbelievable.  When they stripped off and went after each other, I can’t deny that the words heated up the page, but the emotional issues between the two just caused me too many issues.  Jack exists on the page as some kind of innocent kid, even though he is technically an adult, and it was kind of jarring to go from innocent kid to tie-me-down-and-let’s-get-kinky sex.  And Nick probably set a land-speed record for how fast a guy can go from straight up denial of any homosexual tendencies to embracing the inner gay–cock sucking, rim-jobs, and full on kink, included.  Maybe the fragile position of the relationship served to set up the cracks that show later in the story, but for a majority of the book I was having trouble believing that the love they profess was not just puppy-love and lust combined with an unhealthy dose of codependence.

“He drank down the lukewarm liquid and looked up at the sky. It was always a beautiful blue, with the sun shining down on everyone in Hollywood. But it was make-believe, just like the pictures that were filmed there. And like so many others who had sacrificed everything to get close to celluloid glory, there was nothing sunny in Jack’s world anymore.”

The tension in this story really starts to kick off about three-fourths of the way through the book, and it keeps you on the edge for that last fourth.  Life starts to crumble around both Nick and Jack and you can’t help but keep flipping the pages, eagerly waiting to find out just how bad it could be, and whether they are strong enough to withstand the push and almighty pull of Hollywood life.  And this is where not reading the advisory at the end of the blurb came back to kick me in ass, because if I did I might have been prepared for that evil cliffhanger.  Maybe.  That was just brutal.  And cliffhangers and I have a bit of a hate/hate relationship going on.  I hate that they cut me off at moments before the payout, and I hate that they work, making me want to grab the next book in the series.  But the sudden kick to my guts by this was just one more thing that made my enjoyment of this book complicated.  And I’m not sure it was a good kind of complicated.

This wasn’t a bad book.  It had a lot of good points, but the cheating and some of the other more gritty aspects of the books just wasn’t my thing.  It was a really interesting look into the beginnings of Hollywood and the people who aspired to make their way towards stardom on the young silver screen, but it just had more relationship issues than I was willing to handle.  If you don’t mind the dark side of life, and the depths that some people are willing to go to survive in a dark world, I think this book might be right up your alley.  Just be warned, that cliffhanger is a doozy.

Carissa rates it – 

BUY LINKS: Totally Bound

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Carissa is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: CARISSA’S REVIEWS
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