Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Rabbit Wars
SERIES: Eostre’s Baskets #3
AUTHOR: Whitley Gray
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: 153 pages
BLURB:
After two months in Dubai supervising a construction project, architect Jefferson Fontaine returns home to find his boyfriend boffing the dog walker. Reeling, Jeff grabs his dignity and departs. The arrival of a mysterious wicker box and a letter requesting Jeff’s presence for the reading of a local entrepreneur’s will sends Jeff to his hometown of Crooked Creek, Colorado. The last thing he expects is to encounter an old flame who disappeared fifteen years ago.
After high school, Ashton Eiker hoped to start a future with the boy he loved, but his world crashed when Jeff refused to bring Ash along with him to college. Ash ran from the rejection, but returned to Crooked Creek a year ago, bringing his confectionary talents and opening a chocolate shop. When the great uncle of a childhood friend names Ash in his will, he could hardly anticipate getting a helping of his past in the mix.
Jeff and Ash jointly inherit the historic Jeremiah Rabbit House, and are forced to work together to meet the terms of the will or neither will have the mansion. It’s a battle of opinions, shared personal history, and present attraction, but the true prize isn’t the Rabbit legacy. It’s the chance at something better.
REVIEW:
A violent father, a promising future, the crash and burn of his first relationship–Jeff had a lot of reasons to leave his hometown. And very few reasons to return. That is until he catches his boyfriend ‘exercising’ the dog walker, and then finds out that his architecture firm is planning to ship him out to Chile within the month. After all that, yeah, he could do with a change of scenery–and not of the South American variety. So instead he decides to head back to his hometown, take care of some unfinished business, and try to figure out what the hell to do with his life.
Ash is used to people leaving him. He may not like it, but it seems that it is the hand that life has dealt him. Though, after years of abuse, abandonment, and just plain shitty luck, Ash has found something that is finally just his. Something he can love. Chocolate. His odd creations are unique and delicious. And he even has his eye on opening the old chocolate factory in his hometown. Then life decides once again to upset his house of cards, bringing his first love back into town, and giving them both an equal stake in a house that they had both loved, growing up. But trying to not fall back in love, while trying to fix a past that was torn apart, is easier said than done. But even if Ash and Jeff can find a way back together, Jeff is only going to leave in a few weeks, anyways. Unless Ash can convince the man to stay.
Chocolate, Easter-bunnies, hot men falling back in love, chocolate–what’s not to like? I admit I didn’t go into this book expecting to like it as much as I did. I mainly picked it up because I wanted something with an Easter flair to keep me company over the Easter weekend. I can’t say that I’ve read any Easter-themed books before, so I was not exactly sure what to be expecting, really. Chocolate, mostly. Lots and lots of chocolate.
And boy did I get that. I really wish that this book came with a sample platter of all of Ash’s chocolates because they really sounded delicious. Well, they could probably keep the white chocolate to themselves–but white chocolate isn’t real chocolate, so one can’t rightly expect it be the delicious food of the (probably diabetic) gods, that normal, real, chocolate is (I may have a bit of hate-on for white chocolate. Mostly because it is nasty evil pretend-chocolate and should not be allowed to exist/given to unsuspecting victims). I liked how the chocolate aspect was worked into the story. And Ash’s shop (even with bitchy shop assistant) was really cool. From the flashbacks, I wouldn’t suspect that this is where Ash would end up, but it really fits the grown-up Ash in the story.
Ash and Jeff clicked a lot faster than I thought they would. Though they certainly have the backstory to justify that entire angsty hate/love thing they have going on when they first meet back up. The flashbacks are used pretty well in showing us who they were as kids, falling in love, as well as building up nicely to the reason that both Jeff and Ash left their home town. Though sometimes I was not a big fan of how the flashbacks were worked into the story–seemed a tad clunky–they were really well done in context of framing the story. They help me believe that these two can feel so strongly about each other, after so many years, because you see all of the love, lust, and heat that was there before the big fight broke them up.
All of the family issues surrounding these two were relatable, as well as unique to themselves–especially Jeff and his dad. I love the addition of Huntington’s disease to the subplot of this story. It is not something that shows up all that often (I’ve pretty much never read a story with it before) so I was thrilled to see a unique spin on the reasons that Jeff left town, and why his dad was so much of a dickbag. I don’t know a whole lot about Huntington’s (ok, all that I know it is from the subplot that was featured in the show House M.D.) but I always enjoy new story angles in my books. I do wish that it had played a bigger role in the story. It was on the edges of the plot, just hanging out a bit, but it never really made it to the center, and I think that something like that would have not been so easily shrugged off by both MCs.
I am, it can be said, not a big fan of the whole “disaster brings clarity” trope. You know, where one (or both) MCs get caught in a life or death situation and then they finally see the error of their ways, make a 180 in their personalities and everyone lives happily ever after. I find them really contrived. I mean, if you are not willing to tell someone you love them unless they defy death, that does not bode well for the relationship. I get that they are supposed to make the MC see the error of their ways, and show what they could lose…but I just don’t like them. It is a personal thing, I guess. Maybe I just want to see the guys make the hard choices on their own. To say, “I don’t know what is going to happen, whether we will have fifty years, or fifty days, but hell I am willing to try anyways. This may be the stupidest thing I have ever done, and you could very easily break me into a million pieces, but if I don’t do it I will regret it for the rest of my life.” And to say it because they mean it, and not just because they think the other dude is going to die on them. If you wait your whole life for a house to fall on someone so you can finally man up and tell them that you love them, you could very well end up old and alone.
I guess what I am trying to say it that I wish that Jeff and Ash would have stopped being asses before the whole house fiasco. There were signs that they were getting there, but I think this story would have been stronger, for me, if they had to make those hard choices on their own, and not let outside influences dictate their actions.
There was quite a bit I liked about this story, and for the most part it worked really well. Just there were some things that I have never liked, that show up a bit too much in this story. I loved the whole Jeff Ash reunion, what with the hate that morphs back into love, and competition they have going between each other was good. Maybe if the story had happened over a longer time frame I just might have believed it more.
RATING: 