Reviewed by Donna

TITLE: Silver Scars

AUTHOR: Posy Roberts

PUBLISHER: Labyrinth Bound Press

LENGTH: 282 Pages

BLURB:

A bomb destroyed high-powered lawyer Gil Lemieux’s seemingly perfect life, and PTSD has ruled every decision since the explosion that left him scarred inside and outside. Moving home with his mom is meant to be a temporary measure, just like proofreading for a medical editorial firm is meant to be a stopgap. But two years after taking on the wrong court case, he’s still living in fear.

Keith Kramer might be based 1,500 miles away from Gil, but their shared work brings them together—a chance meeting that’s life-changing. Gil is drawn to Keith’s good looks and intelligence, but it’s his innate understanding that Gil is more than the scars on his skin that is truly attractive. He’s everything Gil used to be and more. It blows Gil’s mind that his attraction might be returned.

Only doubt could widen the distance between them. Keith’s hopefulness, borne out of surviving some tough challenges of his own, isn’t enough to bridge the distance alone. Gil will need to believe he has as much to offer as Keith if they’re to build a life together.

REVIEW:

I want a moment, I realize as I stare at my creation. I want a moment that will change me back to the man I use to be. I want to shake off all the debris and ash still covering me, but my moment hasn’t come yet.

This book was not what I was expecting at all. I figured from the blurb (not that the blurb is misleading) that this was going to be a story about perfect Keith meeting damaged Gil and there’d be a whole lot of dramatics and self doubt from Gil, who would of course continuously push Keith away because Keith deserves someone better than him, yadda, yadda, yadda… We all know how that story goes, right? But this was something else.

Gil has been suffering with PTSD for almost two years, ever since surviving a horrifying attempt on his life. Though the scars on his body have all but healed, the scars on his mind remain fresh and a constant source of torment for the once confident man. Living back with his mother and working part-time at a job he is ridiculously over qualified for is the only way he can manage to function day to day, but when his job requires him to complete more thorough training, he’s forced to travel 1500 miles and way beyond his comfort zone. And that’s where he meets Keith.

When Gil first encounters Keith he’s instantly struck by his good looks, but at the same time he judges him as a bit of a pretentious prat. It’s not until Keith shows Gil his own wounds that Gil allows himself to indulge in his attraction to the other man. But Gil can’t stay in Minnesota, so after only one night together the men are forced to say goodbye. Now they need to decide not only if they want a long distance relationship, but also if they think they’re strong enough to handle one.

Despite the fact that the couple get together early in the book, the romance between them is definitely what I would call a slow-burn. They’re apart for quite a good portion of the book but, and I stress the “but”, it actually didn’t bother me. Only last week I was whining in another review that the MCs spent so long separated but in this story it worked. Though they are apart physically there is constant contact and dialogue between them We also got to see more of how Gil is without Keith by his side, plus we get to share in Gil’s struggle to get his mind healed to a point that he feels able to function in the wider world again. His struggle to rehabilitate himself so he can step away from the safety of his mother and go back to Keith was engrossing.

Oh, and I feel I should mention this…

Moments later he’s filling my mouth, but I don’t swallow. Instead, I leave his flagging flesh alone and lick his come into his hole. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving him right now to run upstairs for lube. This will work.

Swear to god, I read that about five times and thought – HOLY FUCK! These guys are all about the love and the feelings and the deep connection. I don’t know where on earth that slice of filthy hotness came from but hell, I like it!

I think what I enjoyed most about this story was the fact that nothing turns out to be perfect, well, except the love between the main characters. Every opportunity there is for something to go wrong isn’t magically solved to end up all rainbows and roses. Shit does go wrong. But it’s not over the top, unbelievable dramatics either. Gil suffers from PTSD and Keith is physically more damaged than Gil. It’s implausible to expect that these men won’t suffer for the HEA they deserve. The way they come to simply expect and receive support from each other was a brilliant way for the author to show us how much they’ve both healed and how much they trust in their love. Though the book did seem to take me a long time to read, it didn’t feel drawn out. These guys needed to work hard for everything they achieved and I didn’t want it to go any faster than the way the author wrote it.

After all the suffering and obstacles Gil and Keith overcome during the story, the epilogue was just what I needed to be able to happily let these characters go. And I adored the last two sentences, they summed up the book perfectly.

We’ve done enough climbing. It’s time for us to have a few years of coasting.

And P.S. – that cover! Love the cover!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

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