Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE:  Tigerland 

SERIES: Tigers and Devils #2

AUTHOR: Sean Kennedy

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 306 pages

BLURB:

After an eventful and sometimes uncomfortably public courtship, Simon Murray and Declan Tyler settled into a comfortable life together. Now retired from the AFL, Declan works as a football commentator; Simon develops programs with queer content for a community television station.

Despite their public professional lives, Simon and Declan manage to keep their private life out of the spotlight. Their major concerns revolve around supporting their friends through infertility and relationship problems—until Greg Heyward, Declan’s ex-partner, outs himself in a transparent bid for attention.

Though Simon and Declan are furious with Greg and his media antics, they can’t agree on what to do about it. Declan insists they should maintain a dignified silence, but both he and Simon keep getting drawn into Heyward’s games. Simon and Declan will once again have to ride out the media storm before they can return their attention to what really matters: each other.

REVIEW:

I read Tigers and Devils a couple of weeks ago and loved it so much! I was very happy to see it has a sequel… and several little short stories as well. I am not going to review the shorts, I read them all before reading Tigerland, and they were cute, but not long enough to review. If you read Tigers and Devils and Tigerland, grab the shorts as well. Here’s the link to my review of Tigers and Devils.

So we met Simon and Declan in the first book, I’ll skip the details (read my review if you want the scoop), and just say Declan was a football player (Australian Football), deep in the closet. Simon was out and proud. They met, dated, fell in love, Declan was outed, they had much much drama and angst, and lived happily ever after. Or so we thought! This book starts off several years later, with them living their new life together. Declan is no longer playing after his injury finally taking him out of the game, he’s now an on air personality for a sports show. Simon is now a producer for a small LGBTQ cable channel. Their families are stable and accepting, to the point that Simon’s family pretty much has a shrine to Declan in Simons old room! Things are going just fine, which means it’s time for drama.

This book’s drama is provided by Greg Heyward, Declan’s ex-boyfriend. Declan and Greg “dated” while both playing football, but broke up when Greg cheated on Declan. Neither wanted to come out of the closet while playing, there was just no way their relationship was meant to be. They broke up, a year or so later Declan and Simon began to date. Now Greg has decided to come out of the closet, and make himself the new poster boy for gay athletes. Of course he has to be an asshole and cause shit for Declan. He makes an appearance on a show on the channel Simon works for admitting that he had a relationship with Declan. Next Greg hooks up with Simon’s arch-nemesis to write a tell all book, snippets of which are published in a magazine article, and are total bullshit. Meanwhile Declan keeps his mouth shut to the press, and Simon bitches and moans. Drama is happening with their friends as well, pretty much all of them are wound up!

I liked this book quite a bit, it was a good sequel, but it didn’t have the emotional drama that Tigers and Devils had. Part of that is the established couple issue, I never believed that Declan and Simon would break up. In the first book I was pretty sure they would at any moment. Greg was just a shit and needed to go away, but he never really did any damage to Declan and Simon’s relationship. It was all just superficial drama. It was good, but I wasn’t as in to the story as I could have been. In the first book I didn’t miss the sex, but I wish this one had some sex to keep it interesting. I did like the side stories with Abe and Lisa, and Fran and Roger. Also the glimpses of Simon’s awesome family…

Overall I liked this book, I’m glad I read the first one, the short stories and this one. I loved the snarky dialogue, Simon is such a smart ass, and I loved him. I loved reading a book set in Australia written by an Australian author. He didn’t “Americanize” it, I did need to look up some of the slang words. I love that. Sean Kennedy is a fantastic author, I’ll need to go see what else he has written!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner

Amazon

ARe