Reviewed by Elizabetta
TITLE: Try
SERIES: Temptation #1
AUTHOR: Ella Frank
PUBLISHER: Self published
LENGTH: 407 pages
BLURB: Try – verb: to make an attempt or effort to do something or in this case…someone.
Sex. Logan Mitchell loves it, and ever since he realized his raw sexual appeal at a young age, he has had no problem using it to his advantage. Men and women alike fall into his bed—after all, Logan is not one to discriminate. He lives by one motto—if something interests you, why not just take a chance and try?
And he wants to try Tate Morrison.
Just coming out of a four-year marriage with an ex-wife from hell, a relationship is the last thing on Tate’s mind. He’s starting fresh and trying to get back on his feet with a new job at an upscale bar in downtown Chicago.
The only problem is, Tate has caught the unwavering and unwelcome attention of Mr. Logan Mitchell – a regular at the bar and a man who always gets what he wants.
Night after night Tate fends off the persistent advances of the undeniably charismatic man, but after an explosive moment in the bar, all bets are off as he finds his body stirring with a different desire than his mind.
As arrogance, stubbornness and sexual tension sizzles between the two, it threatens to change the very course of their lives.
Logan doesn’t do relationships. Tate doesn’t do men. But what would happen if they both just gave in and…tried?
REVIEW:
Try… that is what Logan Mitchell keeps insisting to Tate Morrison.
From the moment Logan set eyes on Tate, the hot new bartender in his favorite after-hours hangout, he wants him. Logan, blithely bisexual, has a rep for pursuing and seducing anything that breathes including most of the other workers at Tate’s new workplace. Logan is a man-whore.
Tate, however, is firmly het, he’s coming off a disastrous marriage and is not looking for another relationship, not even a quick hook-up, it seems. This tall, hot, motorbike riding hunk just wants to lick his wounds quietly.
Well, Logan wants to help with that… the licking part, anyway. Tate can’t help but notice the handsome Logan and be flattered by the hot pursuit. When he sports a stiffy watching Logan get a BJ in a dark hallway in the back of the bar… from a female coworker… (more on that later) Tate gets interested. In Logan. Maybe he can play for the other team after all.
I was excited to try out this first venture into male slash by popular M/F author Ella Frank. Anything that brings more M/F readers over to the gay side has gotta be a good thing. But, when at ten percent into the book the two guys had not even left the bar, and we already had two het sex scenes (more on that later), I was already pretty antsy. Things move soooo slowly. There is way too much telling, too much jabbering about the feelzz. There is minimal world building here (most of it done in a prequel not a part of this series) and any secondary characters get slim treatment. Finally we get man sex, but I found myself skimming through all the drawn-out lead up and discussion and same old, same old. There are some hot scenes but they get lost in the soup and it’s just so dull, when nothing much else happens.
The only momentous issue becomes whether Logan can get Tate to give it up. C’mon, really? We all know he will, so there’s no real tension there either…
Again, this is Frank’s first M/M work. I can only assume that she started off the story with a het scene as a gentle lead in for her many readers in that genre. Lord knows, I don’t have a big issue with an author wanting to mix it up a little but when not only the FIRST big sex scene in the book is a het sex scene…
“… Jessica’s leg strained against him, pulling him in closer… Then her sweet, juicy muscles clutched his cock like a goddamn vise…”
But the NEXT one is Logan getting a BJ from another woman (witnessed by Tate!!)…
“… Amelia laughed softly as she unbuttoned his jeans and lowered the zipper… and freed his insistent hard-on… Fisting the root of his shaft, she lowered her lips over his sensitive, swollen head. Logan shut his eyes and imagined a different person altogether…”
Well, that’s just off-putting to this M/M reader.
As to our two guys? Tate is much more appealing than the shallow, egotistical Logan who spends a lot of time jerking him around. (Actually, Logan starts off ok, he’s a funny guy when he realizes his attraction to Tate: “Just when he figured life was going to be easy and hand him a woman to bend over his desk, it threw him a nice fucking curve. Batter up! I want to play with some balls.” He has a lot of funny one-liners, but this is about as deep as Logan gets.) It’s Tate who does the real work in the story by examining his sexual identity and showing he’s up to the challenge. He also pushes back when Logan gets in his face, which is refreshing. But, Tate’s on-going trepidation also recalls the nervous virgin trope found in many het romances. Not a good sign. In the end, I just didn’t care enough about either of them.
For those of us already familiar with the M/M genre, there isn’t anything new or galvanizing to recommend Try. But, I think it may appeal best to readers looking for a light-weight intro into gay romance, especially those legions of Frank readers. Bringing new fans to slash romance is a positive, and for me, this is what earns the points for Try.
Elizabetta rates it – 
BUY LINKS: Ella Frank’s Site
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Elizabetta is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.
To read all her reviews, click the link: ELIZABETTA’S REVIEWS
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