Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Mountains to Climb
AUTHOR: T.A. Chase
PUBLISHER: Totally Bound
LENGTH: 14,910 words
BLURB:
Sometimes the past can be the biggest mountain to climb.
Toby Schwartzel has never forgot Jensen Brockhoff, the man he loved and the one who disappeared six years ago. He thinks he’s moved on, but when Jensen appears again and wants to explain what happened, Toby realises he never got over Jensen. He’d only built up walls to keep from being hurt again.
Jensen Brockhoff left New York City and Toby Schwartzel for several reasons. All of them had to do with drugs and alcohol. He’s clean now and the only thing he’s addicted to is mountain climbing. His passion for the sport has got him through the last six years. But after a particularly harrowing fall on Denali, Jensen knows he has to go back to tell Toby the truth.
Will Toby and Jensen discover they’d never moved past the love they had for each other all those years ago? Or are the mountains between them too high to climb?
REVIEW:
Totally Bound has a series of short stories out, called What’s His Passion. Here’s what their website says about this new imprint:
“What’s His Passion?
Explore our contemporary collection of men and their passions.
We all have our passions—whether they’re simple pleasures like fine wine and good music, or more ambitious like climbing mountains or jumping out of airplanes. It might even be revelling in the edgier side of sex!
Dive in and discover the many passions of the amorous men explored in our new imprint—What’s His Passion?”
Mountains to Climb is the first of this group I have read, and is an enjoyable story. It is short, as it’s meant to be, so things are very rushed, and the plot is small in scale. Neither of those issues are a problem, I just have to remind myself as I’m reading a short story that it is that way intentionally. There is no time for drama, or action, just get to the story and get it told. So be warned, it is short and fast.
Toby Schwartzel lives and works in New York City, and makes a lot of money. He has a nice apartment, nice things, a nice job, and no boyfriend. He had a nice boyfriend, but six years ago, the nice boyfriend bailed on him and did nothing but send him a crappy email saying he had some things to work on. Toby has since been making his way through the NYC bar scene and sleeping around, but has built up a nice wall of defense around his bruised heart.
Jensen Brockhoff had the same nice job, nice life, nice boyfriend in NYC, in fact he had Toby as his nice boyfriend. Unfortunately he also had a nice alcohol and drug addiction. He knew he needed to deal with his shit, and didn’t want to drag Toby down. So he left. And sent a crappy email telling Toby he had some issues to deal with, bye bye.
Six years later, Jensen has gotten his shit together, is now clean and sober, and decides it’s time to go reclaim Toby. In to Toby’s life he comes…
This story takes place over two evenings, so it’s quick to develop and moves along at a fast pace. We get the backstory of these two, we get Jensen’s drama, we get some sex, and we get a happy ending. I liked Toby, he seemed very sweet, Jensen was a little harder for me to like. I didn’t dislike him, but I don’t agree with what he did, and I didn’t really understand why he did it, so I just didn’t get him as well. For such a short story it is all well done. T.A. gives us enough information about the two men, and enough of a plot to make it interesting, and gives us a couple of decent sex scenes that make it fun. She also gives us details about mountaineering, and a glimpse of the passion some (crazy!) people have for climbing mountains.
I had some issues with the plot, and needed to tell myself a couple of times that it is a short story and let it go. There was no time for drama between Toby and Jensen. But I really wanted more from Toby, I wanted him to make Jensen work harder. I would have been all kinds of pissed off if the love of my life walked away six years ago, with no explanation, and then thought he could just waltz back in to my life and bed. Toby starts off wound up, when he first sees Jensen, but that doesn’t last long. I guess for me the “passion” in this book was Jensen’s passion for mountaineering, but the passion between them was harder for me to find. It was there, they do have a good physical connection, and their sex scenes were hot, but it was just all very easy.
I went through a T.A. Chase phase a couple of years ago and read most of her books that were out at that time. I find them all enjoyable, as this one was, she does these short stories well. They are little glimpses of the lives and loves of men, with well written characters and quick plots. I liked Mountains to Climb just fine, I read it and said “awwww….”.
RATING: 
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