Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Spring Affair

SERIES:  Seasons of Love #1

AUTHOR:  B.G. Thomas

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner

LENGTH:  350 pages

BLURB:  

Sloan McKenna is going through a tough time. His beloved mother has recently passed away, leaving him her house and beautiful garden. But should he keep the house? Sell it? To make matters worse, he’s in love with one of his best friends, Asher, a man who can’t (or won’t) love him back.

Sloan’s neighbor, Max Turner, is married to an ambitious woman with far-reaching dreams, including moving the family to France. But Max is happy teaching at the local college and living in their nice, quiet town. Then he discovers his fourteen-year-old son is not only gay, but out and proud as well. That throws him into complete disarray, for more than one reason….

When Max’s wife leaves on a two-month business trip to Paris, circumstances throw the two men together. As they become friends, Sloan finds himself falling in love with Max, who is completely unavailable… just like Asher. As for Max, he is discovering that both his son’s coming out and his new friendship with Sloan are stirring up feelings he thought buried long ago. Spring is a time for rebirth—Is there any way the two men can find happiness and a new beginning?

REVIEW:  

**Warning: this book may cause you to stay up to completely ridiculous hours of the night because after finishing the book, you just had to go and watch Shelter.  (i.e. I may have written this review while watching it in the background, because who needs sleep when you have pretty boys doused with sexual tension?)**

Sloan doesn’t know what to do with his life.  His mother has died, leaving him a house–but does he sell and try to make a new life for himself somewhere else, or does he stay?  He pretty much hates his job–soul-sucking customer service isn’t exactly the career anyone plans on–but he has friends there, and really, what else would he do?  And then there’s his love life, which is a bit of a shambles even without his hot (married) neighbor thrown into the mix–what with his hopeless in-love-ness with his friend Asher.  Sloan knows he needs to let go (of Asher) and stay away (from Max), but his heart is bit of a helpless bastard.

And Max–well he isn’t in any better shape than Sloan.  He is married to a woman he doesn’t really fit with, his son is apparently gay, and now it seems like he can no longer run away from the fact that he finds men a whole lot more enticing than he has ever found his wife.  With his wife off to Paris for two months, Max might–might–get a chance to sort it all out.  If he doesn’t have a breakdown about his kid, if he doesn’t find the closet door too heavy to open, and if he doesn’t fall hopelessly, completely, and untimely in love with his neighbor.

Two months can change a lot in a life, especially when you are not looking.

I am a little unsure what I think about this book. There are some parts I liked (the story) and some parts that didn’t work for me (the storytelling).  I enjoyed reading it (most the time) but sometimes had to force my way thru a chapter in order to get past some of the parts that I just didn’t like.  I am just unsure whether someone else reading it would have the same hang-ups as me.  We all have our own likes/dislikes when it comes to the books we read, and this one just fell on the wrong side for me, a few more times than I wanted.

I liked Sloan.  He goes into this book saying he will not get mixed up with a married man, that he will not help him cheat, and while he may fall foolishly in love with Max, he sticks to his principles.  Maybe by the skin of his teeth, but he sticks to them all the same.

I liked Max.  He is one hell of a mess, and he has some real internalized homophobia going on that is really fucking with his head–especially when his son comes out–but he struggles with it and tries to find answers.  Max doesn’t just let himself cling to his (father’s) beliefs, simply because they are easier. And he doesn’t sleep with Sloan–even though he really really really wants to.

I liked the secondary characters.  They are not perfect (not even close) but they are fully realized people in their own right.  They are not just puppets to move the story in one direction (even if they are sometimes used as such) but have their own shit to deal with.  I like when you get unique characters, and this book had several.  And they were interesting enough that I really hope that they get their own books, because I’d love to see their stories unfold.

I did not like the way this story was told.  And this, I admit, is probably not going to apply to everyone.  Some of you might have no problem with it.  But this book stayed in the characters head way too much.  There is a lot of “tellin” in this book.  We spend so much time in these guys’ heads that sometimes I had no clue what was going on around them, or where they were, or what they were doing.  And sometimes you didn’t just get one headcase a chapter, you got them both, and then it just lost me altogether.  I am a strictly one pov per section, type of gal (some exclusions may apply), and when you have guys trading off povs ever sentence, it is just too much for me to handle.  I don’t know what the story was to have gained by doing this, so I am not sure it was worth it.

I did not like the whole ghost-mother thing.  If you are seeing dead people, and the book is not paranormal in some way, you got issues.  You are either riding some fine drugs or you need to check yourself into a mental hospital for some one-on-one times with the good doc.  I have a fantastic imagination–one I probably spend too much time indulging–but even I don’t go around talking to dead people.  If these sections had happened in his mind, as some type of memory, I wouldn’t have had a problem.  Hell I probably wouldn’t have had a problem if Sloan had been hearing his mother’s voice in his head.  But he was actually seeing her, like she was actually there, and I just find that really odd when that happens in books that are not in any way tied to the paranormal.

I am unsure about Logan.  Kudos to the kid, and all, for being so well adjusted–I don’t think I could have handled all that stuff without a minor (major) freakout.  But sometimes it felt like he was a little too zen about everything.  I get that he loves being gay (as well he should) but he just seemed a little over the top, sometimes.  And I don’t know if any kid would be as blasé about his dad turning out to be gay, falling in love with his neighbor, and then ditching his mother.  It isn’t like his mother is a horrible person.  I just had a hard time believing that Logan was so chill about it all.

I am unsure about the whole Buddhism/vegan thing.  Far be it for me to dictate what people believe.  I gave that up when I ditched my own religion.  If it makes you happy and doesn’t require everyone else to be miserable while you do so, go for it.  And I love reading stories about things I don’t know/normally think about.  It is fun to have my worldview bent in new ways, and it makes the story all the more unique.  I just felt that it wasn’t integrated into the story as well as it could have.  Part of this is the way the story was told, but sometimes it felt like the story was trying to lecture us, and that is something I never really enjoy in my romance novels.  And yes, I do have a (irrational) thing against vegans.  I just don’t think food should come with a lecture.  If it is good, that is great, and if it is better for you than other stuff, than even greater–I just find it annoying when characters (people) decide to lecture other characters (us) about how if you don’t live this way you are in some way the reason that all things are bad in the world. (And yes I do know I am kinda painting with a wide brush. Not everyone does this.)

For the most part I enjoyed this book.  The story was interesting, it had a few topics that I’ve never had in books before, and all the characters (even the ones that spoke French) were great.  It is just that the way it was told made the story drag (or get confusing) in some parts.  I’ll admit, though, that I am most likely going to pick up the book later in this series (when they are written).  I just think they will probably not be going on my must-buy list.  Still, I did like it–just not quite as much as I could have.

RATING:  

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