Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Charlie’s Hero
SERIES: Heroes #1
AUTHOR: Nic Starr
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 Pages
BLURB:
Schoolteacher Charlie Matthews returns to his hometown, looking to regain a sense of community, reconnect with friends, and settle down. It looks like his dreams have come true when paramedic Josh Campbell attends an accident at the school. It’s love at first sight, and a romance begins.
But Josh’s reluctance to come out to the brother who raised him, puts pressure on their fledgling relationship. While Charlie understands Josh’s concerns, he can’t help growing impatient. After all, Charlie came out years ago.
It’s not until Charlie confronts his own parents and realizes he hasn’t come to terms with their rejection that he fully understands what Josh has to lose. But Josh is Charlie’s hero, and Josh will do anything to prove to Charlie that to be part of a family, he doesn’t need his parents.
REVIEW:
Charlie Matthews first sees Josh Campbell when the sexy paramedic is called to take care of a little girl who has broken her leg. Josh exudes confidence, is movie star handsome and is gentle and calming with Charlie’s injured student. From what Charlie can see, the man is the perfect package, a perfect hero. When Josh returns to the school as part of a children’s safety campaign run by the fire department, the two men meet again. And this time Josh has the time to really notice Charlie right back. Organizing a date seems a mere formality and the first step in what both feel could be the start of something special.
The first thing that impressed me with this book was that the author managed to sell me the idea of love at first sight between these two men. In my opinion, it was a perfect combination of cutesy cliché tempered by reality. The men don’t actually look at each other and fall in love, it’s more that they look at each other and want to fall in love, or feel that they could fall in love.
Initially, I didn’t really understand Charlie. He seemed like a bit of a noob actually. I just couldn’t understand why he would move back to his home town after his family and some of his friends rejected him when they found out he was gay. Charlie explains his reasons, but I guess they just didn’t ring true to me. But as the story went on it became apparent that although Charlie’s family has decided that they don’t love him anymore, Charlie still desperately loves his family. And, for me at least, this was one of the best parts of the story. Often when one of the characters has been cast out for being gay, the parents are presented as complete assholes and you kind of shrug and think – well you’re better off without them anyway. If they aren’t complete assholes then there’s usually some sort of reconciliation, and the parents are sorry for the way they reacted. But what I enjoyed about this story was the fact that Charlie’s parents didn’t fall into either of those categories. They seemed nice. Every time they briefly appear in the story (before they encounter Charlie) and every time Charlie recalls a childhood memory, his parents are shown as mostly happy, loving people, who simply refuse to have a gay son. They confused me, and I liked that. It added a sense of realness to the story.
As for Josh, well he was just a hot mess of confusion and contradictions but I liked him too. Josh is interesting because it’s as though he doesn’t really know who he is. When it comes to work he’s confident and sure but when it comes to his personal life he’s rather timid and uncertain. He’s not really closeted, he’s open to some PDAs and there are some people who know he’s gay. But he’s terrified of how his brother, his only family, will react when he finds out. Luckily for Josh, Charlie is seriously accommodating because he knows what it feels like to lose family.
A few times I found it a little hard to keep track of the characters. More men are introduced little by little until by the end there are a lot of guys to keep track of. I may have got a tinsy bit confused, but at the same time, I love books with plenty of characters who are ready and raring to go have their own romances!
We get a sneak peek at the second book in the series at the end of this story. I’m not a big fan of second-chance-love stories but I enjoyed this first book so much I might have to give it a go anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this series could change my opinion.
RATING: 
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