Review: Taylor
Title: Wrestling Demons
Series: Brandt & Donnelly Caper #2
Author: Xavier Mayne
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 276
Blurb:
A Brandt and Donnelly Caper: Case File Two
Jonah Fischer’s high school wrestling career has been stellar, but now he’s the unwilling star of a series of videos that have hit the web. The whole world may have seen the evidence that his best friend turns him on. Jonah’s conservative family wants him cured, and his conventional town and school want him normal. The only person who still wants him just the way he is is Casey Melville, the same best friend who turned him on for all the world to see. Meanwhile, Casey begins to wonder if there’s more to his feelings for Jonah than he thought.
Officers Brandt and Donnelly—lovers as well as partners on the job—have been assigned to find the culprit who posted the video. While investigating the case, they also help Jonah and Casey find their way through their feelings, and steer them toward refuge when Jonah’s family turns against him. But the mystery remains: who wants to hurt Jonah badly enough to post those videos, and why? Thank goodness Jonah and Casey have found friends—they’re going to need all the help and support they can get.
Review:
Wrestling Demons is a good surface book. Kind of like flipping on the television and watching the first thing that catches your interest, but you probably won’t remember much about it afterwards.
The book centers around two couples, cops Brandt & Donnelly, and a high school couple, Jonah & Casey. The characters are likable enough but again not enough development with any one character, so it’s only shallow things I can recall. I don’t think the POV helped matters, either. Brandt & Donnelly are called in to investigate a series of hidden videos taken in the high school boys’ locker room of Jonah. I feel like the author could have taken this thread and ran with it in interesting ways, but the gavel I was hit on the head with for the homophobia, small-town religious conservative sports-is-everything themes lessened my enjoyment. I also couldn’t fathom how already at the FIRST video where all you see is ass from Jonah people were practically screeching and clutching their pearls that this would RUIN his athletic career. How? I mean really.
The novel also lacked focus for me. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Some of this couple, some of that. Too much of it, and well, I stopped caring about it all.
However, Nestor & Bryce cracked me up & the quote that Jonah’s dick was a “poem written in meat” was so hilariously awful, I died.
I liked Brandt & Donnelly. I loved that Casey stood by Jonah and supported him & tried helping him through the mess in his head and the mess in his life. I just wish we’d gotten one clear couple’s book and some restraint in the issues.
Rating: 
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