Reviewed by Donna & Kimberley
TITLE: Gerry’s Lion
AUTHOR: Ashavan Doyon
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 230 Pages
BLURB:
Gerald Tanner lost the piece of his life he loved most, his husband Adam. When faced with the prospect of another Christmas with a family who thinks he’s better off now that Adam is gone, Gerry decides instead to revisit the memory of when they met, and boards a Christmas cruise on the Sunrise. He’s not expecting to meet Leo Ystrabov. He certainly never imagined the courageous young man would challenge him into feelings of desire and the possibility of a love that isn’t his precious Adam.
Leo Ystrabov doesn’t quite know how to handle the shattered heart Gerry presents so hesitantly. But the offer is precious, and Leo can’t resist. However, with two families none too eager to accept them and a lot of baggage on both sides, their relationship faces an uphill battle. Leo will have to find his courage to be the lion Gerry sees in him.
DONNA’S REVIEW:
Ashavan Doyon is one of the best writers I’ve come across when it comes to creating main characters who are still grieving the loss of a deceased husband or lover.
We meet Gerry as he boards a familiar cruise ship, needing to spend his Christmas in the place he feels closest to his husband who passed away. Adam was the absolute center of Gerry’s life, his soul mate, his forever love. Now that he’s gone Gerry’s just going through the motions of living, making no effort to move forward with his life. But then he meets Leo. All it takes is a few hours spent together and Gerry concedes that this is a man that he doesn’t want to let slip away.
My heart broke for Gerry, who falls for Leo while still deeply mourning his first husband. He tries to force himself to be ready for a new relationship when he recognizes a man he could grow to love. I truly felt his pain and confusion, while at the same time I wanted to kick him for what he was forcing Leo to accept and deal with so the two men could attempt a relationship.
I loved the messed up complications that were their families. Not only did the men have to face both homophobic families, there was also the addition of Adam’s family to deal with, who were closer to Gerry than his own. Yes, both men had raging homophobes in their family trees, but there was nothing stock standard or boring about them. They weren’t just reused cliché’s but well developed and interesting characters. I particularly enjoyed the way the story of Leo’s family played out.
An unexpected perk of the book was the amount of page time given to Gerry’s art. It wasn’t just a vague background occupation, the author made him an artist so by god he was going to be an artist. I actually found it all very interesting, specifically the way Gerry’s art was used to show us Gerry, show us how Gerry felt about Adam and how he felt about Leo. I honestly wish that some of those paintings actually existed for me to see.
While much of the book had me feeling sad, at the same time it was a sweet love story. Every facet of the story was written with depth and attention to detail.
DONNA’S RATING: 
KIMBERLEY’S REVIEW:
Although this was well written and the characters well thought out, I just couldn’t get into it. For me, it was because the story dragged along in spots. Gerald, grieving after losing his husband decided to embark on a cruise instead of spending the holidays alone. He’s expecting to relive some happy memories of him and Adam together without his family’s interference or input. He meets a young man on the plane who makes him feel something other than grief. Leo is so sweet, too sweet in my opinion. These men are meant to be together but the road to their HEA ending was rocky to say the least. The book frustrated me because I felt that Gerald could have–no, SHOULD have told his family to back off. The first time I would’ve been nice, respecting the fact that they too were grieving but after that, I felt that they should have been put in their places. It was way too many stunts and shows that they had to endure to make this relationship work. And maybe that’s why the story dragged for me. It was just so much grief, so much pain in the first half and in bits throughout, it was just too much. Maybe I have a block of ice in the place where my heart should be.
KIMBERLEY’S RATING: 
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