Reviewed by Elizabetta
TITLE: Caught!
SERIES: The Shamwell Tales, book 1
AUTHOR: JL Merrow
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: 276 pages
BLURB:
You can run from the past…but the past runs faster.
Behind Robert’s cheerfully eccentric exterior lies a young heart battered and bruised by his past. He’s taken a job teaching in a village primary school to make a fresh start, and love isn’t part of his plans. But he’s knocked for six—literally—by a chance encounter with the uncle of two of his pupils.
Sean works in pest control, rides a motorbike, and lives on a council estate. On the face of it, he shouldn’t have anything in common with Robert’s bow-tie, classic-car style and posh family background. Yet Robert is helpless to resist Sean’s roguish grin, and a rocky, excruciatingly embarrassing start doesn’t keep the sparks between them from flaring.
Despite Robert’s increasingly ludicrous attempts to keep his past where it belongs, his past hasn’t read the memo. And soon his secrets could be the very things that drive Sean away for good…
Warning: Contains the alarming misadventures of a pest control technician, a stepsister with a truly unfortunate name, and a young man who may have more bow ties than sense.
REVIEW:
In Caught!, British elementary school teacher Robert Emeny is finding his way with a new start in a new school after a devastating betrayal at his previous teaching job.
This is a real slice-of-life look at how Robert fits into the new job working with much younger kids and living the small town life as an openly gay man. Well, it’s never clear if Robert is openly gay or whether it’s his fastidious manner and unique wardrobe styling that ‘outs’ him. He is adept at feeling like the ‘odd man out’ in any case. But he is sweet under that stiff upper-crust lip and great with the kiddies.
Merrow gives us a very close-up and in-depth look at this buttoned-down character who has a thing for spiffy bow-ties and the accent to go with it. A well-brought-up kinda guy who’s first name we don’t even learn until deep into the story. Besides the ribbing about his outfits, there are a lot jokes around his last name as you can imagine. His young students take delight in calling him Mr En-emy (that’s right, go back and re-read the correct spelling) and this is played out throughout the story.
In fact, there is a gentle comic feel as we get Robert’s first-person POV. As fussy as he comes off, he’s also self-deprecating and sweet and seems a bit lost when it comes to love. He has made a friend in fellow teacher, Rose, who gives unsolicited advice in that department and with whom he spends an inordinate amount of time (TMI on the manscaping and mowing of lady lawns).
When Robert lost his last job he also lost his boyfriend… a misunderstanding and a mix-up that we find out about later in the story. But when Robert meets Sean, the local pest exterminator (read rat-catcher), the tables are turned as the two slowly circle around each other. Sean is a charming, fit, copper-haired cutie. He’s helping his sis, who’s battling cancer, take care of her young twin boys. Hence, the school connection, and he’s such a nice young lad, this Sean. He also seems to ‘get’ the off-beat Robert, who becomes Rob, less of a prig, and starts to loosen him up a bit. There is a mutual opposites attracting kind of thing going on– a tightly wound snob versus sexy bad-boy kinda thing.
But it’s a very lukewarm start, slow to catch fire. Finally, about mid-way in (after cooking lessons and lots of take-away eating) we get a little more action and less setting-up when Robert finally starts spending more time with Sean and less with Rose.
I have been interested in this author’s work ever since reading the wonderful Muscling Through. That was such a lovely book and highly recommended. But it is a hard act to follow. My subsequent tries of Merrow’s work have just not lived up to that one.
Don’t get me wrong– the characters and setting are very well-drawn. There are lots of funny bits and enough Doctor Who references in this one to make even a low-key fan throb with delight. And I love the Britishisms… Cheers, but I don’t want to be a gooseberry…
Bugger it sideways…
… just call me the curmudgeon of readers that I’m not wowed by Caught! Yes, it does have those great storytelling elements mentioned before. And, granted, the writing is strong and there are some heart-felt issues raised: issues of teacher/student relationships, illness in family, neglected children. But maybe there’s too much going on? Because, ultimately, it’s a romance and the fire there just doesn’t quite ignite, is perhaps too watered-down.
These two guys are likable, but they’re so up and down and on and off again…and again… and they spend a lot of time apart. Robert probably spends more time with Rose that he does with Sean for a lot of the story. Finally, the guys’ coming together has kind of an ‘oh well, why not’ feel to it. Sweet, but not compelling, and a bit ho-hum.
RATING: 
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