Welcome to the start of a new feature here at Love Bytes: Anthology Week!
The reviewers of Love Bytes pick an anthology to read during the week, dividing the stories of the anthology and review a story each.
The reviews will be posted Monday to Saturday and the week will end with a guest post or interview on Sunday
(There might even be a chance of a giveaway there)
To start this new feature of we have chosen Campus Cravings
General Blurb:
Welcome to Cathia University, where school is in session! Nine of today’s hottest gay romance authors have crafted brand-new interrelated novellas celebrating everything wonderful about college, including sophisticated professors, sexy teaching assistants, ambitious grad students, and spirited undergraduates, all looking for the same thing: an A+ in true love.
Book 1 :
Reviewed by Marieke
TITLE: Private Lessons
SERIES: Campus Cravings: Higher Learning M/M Bundle
AUTHOR: KyAnn Waters
PUBLISHER: C-Squared Publishing
LENGTH: 55 pages
BLURB: Ryan Kane could lose his scholarship and his position on the pitch. Jake
Finely offers to help. Only Ryan and Jake discover their private lessons
have more to do with sex ed than Business Ethics. When a tenured
professor offers Ryan an indecent proposal to make the grade, will he
choose soccer or Jake?
REVIEW:
This short story was very sweet. Ryan is in the closet because he’s afraid his soccer team won’t accept him.
He has a serious crush on Jake though, which he has a hard time concealing.
Jake is a TA for one of Ryan’s professors, the one who’s giving him unfair grades just because he can.
Jake has his own crush on Ryan, and he grabs his chance to get closer to him when it comes along.
The thing that bothered me in this story was that Jake is very out and proud, yet he’s willing to keep their relationship in the closet without a fight.
He’s too understanding and too compliant. It’s as if he’s desperate to be with Ryan no matter the cost.
Yet, his comments and thoughts didn’t seem that desperate.
The story itself was nice, sweet.
I just couldn’t get into it. I felt it was a bit too predictable, which made me want to skip scenes.
Ryan was too indecisive and Jake too accommodating. I did like the writing style and the general atmosphere.
Maybe if there had been a bit more angst in it, the story would have kept my attention better.
~SPOILER ALLERT~
The soccer team eventually finds out and one teammate tells Ryan it’s all right, no biggie. That was kind of an anticlimax. After that you don’t really hear anything from his biggest fear, the team, until the epilogue in which Ryan plays a game. They win, of course, and Jake comes running onto the field…that sums it up.
END SPOILER
Yes it’s a nice story, but not one I will reread.
RATING: 
BUY LINK:
I like sports stories – I’d give this a shot.