Reviewed by Sid

SERIES: The Brothers Grime

AUTHOR: Z. A. Maxfield

PUBLISHER: Loose Id Publication

BOOK #1 – Grime & Punishment

LENGTH: 176 pages

BLURB: The Brothers Grime is Jack Masterson’s way of helping people in crisis after disability ends his career as a firefighter. Jack’s people get to a scene long after the physical trauma ends. They don’t solve crime or rescue the victims. They help people move on. The new job is all Jack wants or needs, until he gets the call about old flame Nick Foasberg’s suicide.

Ryan Halloran’s cousin Nick has been on a downhill slide for a long time. Despite that, Ryan does everything he knows to help. Ryan only understands part of what happened between Nick and Jack in high school, but after Nick’s suicide, Ryan agrees both he and Jack need closure. They work together to clean the scene and despite the situation, heat flares between them.

Jack is keeping a painful secret and fighting his attraction to Nick’s lookalike cousin, Ryan. Ryan calls himself a magnet for lost causes and worries Jack might be the next in a long line of losers. Despite his misgivings, despite the past and the mistakes they’ve both made, Jack gives Ryan something to look forward to, and Ryan gives Jack a reason to stop looking back, in Grime And Punishment.

REVIEW:

Jack Masterson receives a call one day informing him of his former best friend’s death with whom things had ended up pretty badly in the past. But Jack had loved him his whole life and now hearing that Nick had committed suicide, he feels the weight of his past memories to find some kind of closure. What he least expects is to find someone who looks exactly like Nick staying where Nick used to – his cousin, Ryan Halloran. Jack cannot deny his growing attraction toward Ryan but the agonizing past that haunts him isn’t something he wishes to share. Wouldn’t Ryan’s face keep reminding of how much hurt Nick had caused him back then?

The Brothers Grime – a company that is involved in cleaning crime scenes with its punchline that points out – “Life is not exactly a fairy tale”. This has got to be the most interesting job I have ever read about. Jack is the co-owner of this establishment and I salute Maxfield for giving the main character a job that is not cliche. Actually, nothing about this story is cliche – it was quite a refreshing read. The author explores many aspects of life very neatly through this book and we get a better picture of what life is all about. A real picture.

The main issue with this book was that there were more interesting things happening around the main characters than with them. Throughout the book, there is only one conflict involved that remotely affects Jack and Ryan’s relationship – Jack needs to come clean about what really happened between him and Nick back then and the mystery of how Ryan would take it. It was fine that the author took her own time to get to that. That was great, in fact. But that made the part in between kind of dull with the only captivating moments happening when the guys had sex.

To summarise, this was a book that achieved what it wanted to, but couldn’t impress me enough with its character exploration.

Sid rates it –

BUY LINK: Loose Id

CURRENT WEEK REVIEW

BOOK #2 – Grime Doesn’t Pay

LENGTH: 241 pages

BLURB: Eddie Vasquez is hot for his niece Lucy’s third grade teacher, B. Andrew (call me Andrew) Daley. Eddie can’t wait to take Andrew dancing to show him his moves. The only problem is, Andrew keeps talking about books Eddie hasn’t read, that he can’t read — at least not in the usual way — because Eddie’s dyslexic.

When the two men find Eddie’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Henderson, wandering the school grounds confused and smelling of human decomposition, they come together to help her. Eddie’s fiercely loyal, and this is the teacher who uncovered Eddie’s learning disability and helped him regain his self-esteem. He’ll do anything, even take on a massive cleaning job pro bono to pay Mrs. Henderson back for the support she’s given him.

Andrew and Eddie come from different worlds, Eddie can’t read, Andrew can’t dance. Andrew’s father is a horrible snob and if all Eddie’s secrets are laid bare, he’ll have plenty to feel superior about.  But Eddie and Andrew have taken on a massive project together, and their growing attraction can’t be denied. They learn the trick to forming a lasting partnership in dance and in life might be finding a partner whose weaknesses you can live with and whose strengths make you look good, in Grime Doesn’t Pay.

REVIEW:

The Brothers Grime takes a new route to show us another tale of one of the partners. This is the story of Eddie Vasquez who finds his one true love in B. Andrew Daley – his neice’s school teacher.

It put a smile on my face right at the beginning and I got sucked in to never turn back. We find Eddie fixing his hair, trying to look neat and impressive as he drops his neice off at her school. In Grime and Punishment, we have one of the briefest scenes with Eddie where the guys are giving him a hard time about how he dresses up every time he goes to that school, knowing that there had to be a teacher crush involved. So when I read that first scene with Eddie and his adorable neice, my mind soothed back into full concentration. I knew this was going to be the type of book which I’d read without a halt.

Maxfield gives us what was lacking in the first book and that is letting us know the characters by soul and heart. Neither of them was perfect, they didn’t always make the right choices, but still Eddie and Andrew (Don’t you dare call him Boston or Andy or he will come after you!) linger in your memories like they were the best friends you once knew.

The theme of this book is well-thought. Its proximity to the real life problems one faces leaves a distinct impression. Though Eddie has dyslexia, he has managed to overcome the barriers every way he can. But I kept getting the hint that he is indeed ashamed of his limitations as he hides it from Andrew for far too long. One thing that kept touching me regarding Eddie that he seems to be a very kind soul who feels for the others around him, cares for them selflessly. Can you tell that I am absolutely in love with this guy?

Andrew, on the other hand, is a bit spontaneous with his thoughts and actions. This gets him into a very heated arguement at one point of time with Eddie and that was when I realized how different these two are. Their ways of thinking, their behavior patterns, likes, dislikes – they vary so much one would be amazed. Yet, what binds them together is pure love…

… and lust.

The intimate scenes between them are steamy, to put it very mildly because Maxfield does one hell of a job describing their time together. There was a progression there that I saw. The first time what they was pure, lustful sex – the second was exploration, desperation for one more time … and by the time we get the final scene we can feel the true meaning of the words – “making love”.

Eddie and Andrew’s story was like a true love song with a soothing melody. It calms you down, pleases you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine and it makes you want more of it even when you know it will be ending some time. I just didn’t want it to end.

I am sure the author will come out soon with a third installment in this series because we already saw a story brewing in here – Dave and Gabe. I liked Dave – that character intrigues me so I will be looking forward to it, if that is what Maxfield plans.

Sid rates it –  

BUY LINKS: Loose Id  ::  Amazon

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back.  Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. Three things reverberate throughout all her stories: Unconditional love, redemption, and the belief that miracles happen when we least expect them.

If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four can find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”

Website/Blog: http://zamaxfield.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZAMaxfield

FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ZAMaxfield/165809416786338

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2738500.Z_A_Maxfield

Tumblr: http://zamaxfield.tumblr.com/

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