REVIEWED by Taylor

Title: Bad Influence

Series: Bad in Baltimore #4

Author: K.A. Mitchell

Publisher: Samhain Publishing

Pages: 4625 Kindle locations

Blurb:

To remake their future, they’ll have to use pieces of their broken past.

Bad in Baltimore, Book 4

The young man the world knew as Jordan Barnett is dead, killed as much by the rejection of his first love at his moment of greatest need, as by his ultra-conservative parents’ effort to deprogram the gay away.

In his place is Silver, a streetwise survivor who’s spent the last three years learning to become untouchable…unless you’re willing to pay for the privilege. He shies away from anything that might hold him down long enough for betrayal to find him again.

Zebadiah Harris spent time overseas, trying to outrun the guilt of turning his back on the young man he loved. Now, almost the moment he sets foot back in Baltimore, he discovers Silver on a street corner in a bad part of town. His effort to make amends lands them both in jail.

Trapped together in a cell, Silver sits on his mountain of secrets and plans a seductive form of revenge, but finds that using a heart as a stepping stone is no way to move past the one man he can’t forgive, let alone forget.

Warning: Contains a surly hero. May cause angst. A prolonged delay in sexual situations may cause frustration. Author recommends a steady dose of familiar friends and characters to alleviate those symptoms. No actual teenagers were used during the construction of the backstory.

Review:

OK, first off let me start off saying this review I’m about to write pains me.  I love K.A. Mitchell’s books, well most of them.  I like that her characters have ‘fronts’ and they are assholes.  They fight; they fuck, rinse and repeat.  How they communicate is through the sex.  The sex says what they refuse to say.  She’s normally my Queen of Smut.  That being said: I can’t think of anything I liked in this book other than Gavin and Jaime, two characters from the previous book in this series.  Yes, even the main characters, Zeb and Silver, I couldn’t find anything about them that hooked me.  And I’ll get to Eli and his halfway house for gay boys in a bit.

Many of this author’s books don’t have extravagant backstories, but in this book, the author attempted to do that.  But I think when you are trying to work in a 16 yr. old kid lying about his age, getting sent to a reformatory camp, a missionary, jail, prostitution, HIV, bad families, etc. it’s a bit like what the fuck do I focus on.  But what hindered the story with all of that going on is that previous characters kept making unnecessary appearances to tie everything together that Zeb and Silver never connected for me, sort of diffusing the focus of the novel instead of sharpening it.  Zeb is one of those wet, limp, earnest, BORING characters and I can barely remember anything about him other than his appearance is similar to Jesus…or Jared Leto-Jesus.  He appears in and out of the novel, never making a stamp.  He just never felt developed as a character and he and Silver seem to be side characters in their own book, or at least not the main couple. Half-way through the book I realized that this might be the first book from this author where the reader doesn’t get both MCs POVs…and then I thought, do we even want Jesus’ POV?

There was no sexual tension between the two of them and when the author attempted to bring some heat it fell flat.  For instance, their GED study sessions.  I don’t care if they are playing footsie under the table; in fact, I don’t even buy that they would do that.  The author writes really great alpha characters, but both Silver and Zeb are beta.  With beta/beta you need a lot more non-sexual aspects and development or the story goes splat.  Neither character take control and it’s a circle of feeling guilty and wishy-washness.  These two are only together to study and talk about the past without actually showing us any meaningful moments from the past.  You can tell me up and down these two were in love, but I don’t feel it at all.  And 4 years has passed.  Studying for your GED and going to visit your shitty parents and be around couples where you actively despise one member of each couple isn’t bonding romantic times.  There was way too much telling about their backstory, and in some ways that applies to all the happy couples too.  We kept hearing how awesome they are…because they are in love and are awesome.  Nothing really shows that.

It doesn’t help that Gavin/Jaime are more interesting that Silver and Zeb.  There’s a part where Gavin drags off Jaime for sex and I realized I would have rather read that one sex scene that this book.  I guess you could even include Eli/Quinn as being more interesting, but I personally find them annoying as f*ck in this.  This was one of those moments where I realized Eli is the star of this series, and he felt shoved down my throat.  Seriously, the kid is in this A LOT.  Not only is he in the book nonstop but he turns in to this insecure guy needing reassurance from Silver that Quinn still wants him.  And if I read ONE more time about Eli being the best housewife ever, how happy he was to have a Daddy (Quinn), and how loud the two of them were when they had sex, I was going to scream.

Speaking again of Eli, in every book, he such a major presence and a bright blinking light of YOU MUST LIKE ELI that I just can’t stand him.  And to be honest, if I hadn’t read Nate and Kellan’s book or Gavin or Jaime’s book I’m not sure I’d want to because the author kept reinforcing that Nate is a mondo dick and no one gets why Kellan likes him or is good to him and that everyone thinks Jaime is some brash asshole.  And I can get the Nate thing but other than be a little bit rough and smug, Jaime seems like a really kind, nice guy.  I don’t get why they all make fun of him or dislike him.

Then you have ever sprightly Eli popping up with his boring boyfriend and Silver suggesting Eli blow Quinn because Quinn is jealous of Eli’s attention.  I’ve never heard of something so absurd.  You are unhappy my art is doing well?  Awwww, honey, let me blow you downstairs while our guest who is having his life go to hell is upstairs not able to come down until I shout for him.  Jesus.  There are all kinds of weird rabbit trails where Silver assures Eli that Quinn thinks he’s awesome or tells Jamie that it’s obvious Gavin adores him.  And she always has him do this in ways and at times that make no sense. WTF do these other relationships and who is blowing who when have to do with anything, and why is it Silver’s job to reassure them of this stuff?   Especially when his head is such a mess and he has no energy or time or attention to pay to other people anyway, so it always feels kind of phony when he does it.

The only conversations these friends have seem to be about sex:  who’s topping who, old gay allusions to Greek and French (anal and oral), etc.  I know they are guys.  When Marco shows up, all he and Eli do is flirt and talk about having sex.   But guys talk about more than sex, especially guys who are at a gallery opening together, or out on a yacht or hanging at a BBQ.  So the whole story felt one-note, and hung up on sex not in a good way.  At the same time, Silver and Zeb are only doing little tentative actual physical things throughout much of the story, so there is too much talk, talk, talk about sex rather than actually doing it.  Reading this felt like being in a horny teenager’s locker room.   Which is boring and one-note.

There were lots of redundancy and repetition in this.  It was constant.  Silver always flashing back to the same moment at the retraining camp and mentioning it in his mind over and over, Eli being a good little suburban housewife, Zeb looking like Jesus, Jamie being pointed out as red haired and short, Marco being only interested in getting laid.  Once is enough for any of this.  Especially Silver’s past at the camp.  Either develop it more or drop it.  Don’t keep giving me the same scene over and over again.  Silver’s parents were over the top and such a cliché that they left no impression on me, and I’ve actually forgotten everything they were mad at him about.  Eli and Quinn invite all the gay boys who are lost and broken to their home, which leads to a PSA ending.

Last note: there is this character Marco and I seriously don’t like the kid or his storyline, so I don’t want to even go in to it, but I have a feeling she’s setting up his book with Beach and I will be crushed if that happens.  Moving on.

So…um…yeah, I’m sorry, but I just did not like this book.  I LOVE Gavin and Jaime and I would read them over and over again, but this book, for me, lacked focus and was a departure from this author’s usual.  I’m still a HUGE fan of hers and will continue to read her books, but this will not go in my pile of favorites.

 
Rating:

Links: samhain pubishing Amazon