Reviewed by Paul
TITLE: Doug & Neal
SERIES: Storming Love, One Storm: Twelve Men
AUTHOR: Diana DeRicci
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: 89 pages
BLURB:
Doug travels from Arbor Heights to stay with his grandmother Noel during one of the largest hurricanes North Carolina has seen. What starts as a support trip becomes more intense when her neighbor’s house is damaged during the storm, forcing Neal to bunker down with Doug and his grandmother. But it’s not just a hurricane tossing Doug’s life around. There’s a boyfriend back home causing him to question their relationship, and an unexpected attraction for Neal. Doug’s life will never be the same after Hurricane Lauris.
REVIEW:
Diana DeRicci is the sexy, flirty pen name of Diana Castilleja. A romance author at heart, DeRicci’s writing takes you into a saucier spectrum of sensuality and sexual adventure, where a happily-ever-after is still the key to any story. And in this story that is not different.
Doug & Neal meet by coincidence, during a Hurricane at the east-coast.
Doug is helping out his grandmother. Neal is the neighbor of his grandmother. Doug is in a non-happy relationship at the West coast, which ends as his boyfriend disappears when he returns after the storm.
Neal invites Doug after the storm, to relax and recuperate from the break-up.
The attraction between the men is apparent, but the story jumps from one subject to the other.
At some point they find a pregnant dog, that is about to deliver. It even disturbs the first act of love-making between the two characters, and although a hot scene, it somehow felt like a “coitus iteruptus”. And the ending, summarized in an epilogue, was short and felt like: “ok, this story needs a happy ending, but it needs to be quick”.
It leaves the reader with a feeling he could have (should have) gotten more.
It left me with a feeling I was somehow cheated out of a great story. The premise was great, the love-making was well-timed, slow but sensual, but the swerving off topic all the time, made me a disappointed reader.
RATING: 
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