Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: All Kinds of Tied Down
AUTHOR: Mary Calmes
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 290 Pages
BLURB:
Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones has a reputation for being calm and collected under fire. These traits serve him well with his hotshot partner, Ian Doyle, the kind of guy who can start a fight in an empty room. In the past three years of their life-and-death job, they’ve gone from strangers to professional coworkers to devoted teammates and best friends. Miro’s cultivated blind faith in the man who has his back… faith and something more.
As a marshal and a soldier, Ian’s expected to lead. But the power and control that brings Ian success and fulfillment in the field isn’t working anywhere else. Ian’s always resisted all kinds of tied down, but having no home—and no one to come home to—is slowly eating him up inside. Over time, Ian has grudgingly accepted that going anywhere without his partner simply doesn’t work. Now Miro just has to convince him that getting tangled up in heartstrings isn’t being tied down at all.
REVIEW:
“We were as different as we could be, though people often commented that we had a really similar irritating way of carrying ourselves when together, an unmistakable strut.”
Miro and Ian are more than just partners on the job. They’re best friends who are so close that they just don’t have time for relationships with other people. If only Ian was gay they could just rely on each other for “everything” and their lives would be much easier. But sadly, Ian is not gay so on top of handling scumbag criminals and slippery witnesses they also need to find the time to deal with Miro’s asshole ex-boyfriend and Ian’s revolving door girlfriends.
Where to start with this book? The blurb and cover pretty much had me drooling. I’m not a die hard Mary Calmes fan like so many people seem to be but cops definitely catch my interest every time. The fact that they’re US Marshals was just that much better. And then I started reading and discovered the book is written in first person which I know is a negative for a lot of readers but it just happens to be my definite preference. So heading into this story I had some high hopes.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t blown away. At first the story just felt a bit all over the place. I kept getting distracted from what I was reading very easily, so that “all over the place” could have just been my inability to focus but the book just wasn’t able to hold my attention. Plot wise, the only real storyline is – when are these two men finally going to get together? Which, yes, obviously that’s the whole point of the story but I thought it would be backed up by a work related storyline too. They see plenty of action on the criminal front but there is no case that pans out through the entire story. Instead we’re introduced to many different criminals and witnesses and each time I got interested in them the story moves on to their next job.
The author created some interesting characters that I really wanted to read more about, sadly neither of the main characters is one of them. Ian has a girlfriend for a good chunk of the story, and then he leaves on some secret military mission (and don’t get excited because that’s all we ever know about that). Similar to Floodgates, the men don’t sort their shit out till late in the book and by that time I wasn’t all that interested in what they did.
At that point though I think the story did pick up a bit because we’re introduced to Drake and Cabot, a couple of kids who are just the cutest darned couple I’ve read in a while. As characters go, I think they’d get damn annoying with their cutesy ways if they had a whole book to themselves but as secondary characters I loved them. Their interactions with Miro and Ian actually gave me a greater appreciation of the two MCs and that part of the story was definitely my favourite.
However the character I was most interested in was serial killer Craig Hartly. Hartly is introduced at about 35% and I thought what a delicious character, this book just got very interesting, game on. But nope. We’re teased with this Hannibal Lector type character who kills women before turning their dead bodies into “art” and who has an obsession with Miro. He says to Miro “Someday, Miro Jones, I will possess you, and you will be my greatest work” and then that’s it! I was waiting for him to reappear for the whole rest of the story cause thems fighting words, right?! You can’t say something like that and then never be seen again! I was so disappointed.
I have a feeling fans of A Matter of Time will be left squealing with joy because Ian and Miro’s boss just happens to be Sam Kage and he makes several appearances in the story. There’s even a brief glimpse of his husband and kids.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad story but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I don’t think the blurb clearly represents the book. It sounds like Miro has to convince Ian that a relationship between them will work but that just isn’t what happens. Mary Calmes fans may still enjoy it, hell, most of you may enjoy it. We all know that reviews are only the reviewers personal opinion and I guess Mary Calmes is popular for a reason but when it comes to this book, I thought it needed something more. (More serial killer would have been nice.)
RATING: 
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