Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE: Paulie

AUTHOR:  John Inman

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  200 pages

BLURB: To the casual observer, Paulie Banks lives the perfect life. After all, he’s young, handsome, and rich. But Paulie has a secret. He’s madly in love with Ben, his old college roommate — and Ben is straight! Now Paulie has arranged a two-week reunion with his three closest friends to rehash their college years and get to know each other again. Jamie and Trevor are coming, along with their new lovers. And to Paulie’s amazement, even Ben has accepted his invitation.

Beautiful Ben.The one non-gay apple in the old college barrel. Paulie will soon find out if Ben has forgiven him for overstepping the bounds of friendship on the last drunken night they spent together.

With his La Jolla mansion spotless, a stunning new houseboy hired for the duration, and his heart pounding in both fear and anticipation, Paulie welcomes his old friends back into his life. Thanks to a whole lot of liquor and a clothing optional dress code, boy, do the festivities begin!

REVIEW:  

Sometimes I feel like should properly stalk John Inman and just get it over with.  And I would…except I don’t have a car to park outside his house, I can’t take pictures (creepy or otherwise) for shit, and there isn’t space in my room for a proper stalker-alter, because what isn’t a bookcase, is covered in Doctor Who paraphernalia or cat toys.  So I would make a piss-poor stalker, and I hate doing anything by halves…so I’ll just have to settle for reading everything he writes and begging him nicely for more.  That this also happens to be the cheaper option is just a total coincidence.

Ok, with that out of the way…Paulie.

Paulie has had a good life.  Not perfect, but pretty damn good.  He has money, he has his looks, and he has just finished and sent off his first novel to be fawned over/ignored by the publishers.  And for the next two weeks he’s opening his house (*cough* mansion *cough*) to his three best friends from college–Trevor, Jamie, and Ben–and their various lovers/boyfriends/who knows.  It has been nearly two years since they graduated and life has taken them all in different directions, so Paulie is looking forward to finally having the gang all back together.  Paulie is also equal parts terrified and elated that Ben is coming back home.  Mostly because they have not seen, spoken, or corresponded in any way–except for a short condolence from Ben at the occasion of Paulie’s grandmother’s passing–since Paulie made a move on his straight best friend, the night before graduation.  Turns out blowing his straight best friend while they were both falling-down piss-assed drunk, is a great way to ruin a four year friendship.

With a houseboy to attend to their every need, enough alcohol to fill his clothing-optional pool, and enough sexual tension to snap even the best intentions, this is going to be an interesting two weeks.  Paulie just has to find a way to keep from ripping the clothes off Ben the moment they see each other again, and hope that drunken antics two years ago hadn’t permanently ruined the best, most important thing in his life.  He also has to restrain himself from licking the houseboy from top to very luscious tail…but with a house full of young, horny gay men, he is not exactly alone in his predicament.

Paulie seemed quieter than some of John Inman’s other books.  Which is an odd thing to say since this book is chocked full of man-on-man(-on man) action.  You have the cast mostly (if not fully) naked for a good portion of the book, and public displays of down-right smuttiness happening all over the place.  In the pool.  On the billiard table.  Also, the kitchen, the bedrooms….Ok, if it’s a flat surface I’m pretty sure it saw extracurricular activity of some type during these crazy two weeks, whether they happened on page or not.  But still there was a stillness to Paulie that seemed to separate him from the antics for a good portion of the book.  This book wasn’t about the joke, it was about the story, and I found myself both entranced and longing for something just out of reach.

It isn’t till almost a third of the way through the book that we finally meet Ben in the flesh, but he is all over the place even when he is not there.  Mostly because while these two weeks are a way to reconnect with Jamie and Trevor, Paulie is desperate that it will fix what he broke with Ben.  He has been in love with Ben–straight as an arrow, son of a hell-fire minister, Ben–forever, it seems like.  And Paulie is pretty sure his one moment of drunken, foolishly hopeful weakness ruined any chance of Ben even wanting to see him again, let alone resume their friendship.  While I had a pretty good idea how things were going to go down (it is a romance after all) I enjoyed the ride from uncertainty to hope to anger and then finally to blissed-out sex-filled love.  I also love that Ben took his time in Nebraska to learn about himself…and not just try and suppress everything he was feeling.  And it wasn’t just a case of gay-for-you, but a case of I’m gay, I love you, let us have wild monkey sex on the billiards table now, please.

“I’ve loved you for years.  This isn’t a spur of the moment epiphany, you know.  I don’t do spur of the moment epiphanies.  This isn’t one of those instant love plots you read in romance novels either.  This is a love that’s been around for a long time.  Simmering on the back burner, as it were, waiting to explode into flame.”

Now, as to the other men in the house…

I didn’t think I would like these men as much as I did.  When we first meet Jamie and Trevor, they are being pretty much dicks.  Once a couple, now not, they arrive on the same plane, and apparently decide that the thing to do is flirt their way back into each other’s pants.  All under the eyes of their boyfriends, Danny (w/ Trevor) and Jack (w/ Jamie).  It would be pretty over the top to say I hated them, but yeah, basically cheating on your boyfriends, right under their noses, not very admirable traits.  But everything straightens outs…or gets more complicated and bendy…by the end and I find that I am happy that everyone ended up with who they ended up with.  And Jeffery.  Wonderful, houseboy extraordinaire, Jeffery.  My god, what to say about Tall, Dark, and Scrumptious…I think I’ll go with yum.  Everything about him is just so big and handy.  And that he has a mind that would blow mine away in a second…yeah, that is very sexy as well.  For all their naked frolicking, and boy was there a lot of that (thank god), they all served as a nice counterpoint to the angst and tension that was Paulie and Ben.  They help the story slip along, and not get bogged down in the morose.  And they do it all while giving pool-side bjs.  Yum.

There are some points where Paulie narration gets a little flowery, mostly at the beginning of the story, and it was a little distracting, but once the story got going it usually didn’t bother me so much.  And while I am not a big fan of cheating, it did work its way around nicely.  And don’t worry, Paulie is all Ben’s, and vice-versa, there was no snacking on the houseboy or guests for either of them, so if you dislike your MCs playing the field, you are safe.  As always, I truly enjoyed this book by Inman, and was very pleased to find once again that his characters all had their unique voice to add to the craziness.  It was a fun and romantic ride.

Now…I need to go find me a houseboy, so you go read a book or something.  This one will do quite nicely.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press