Reviewed by Sheena
TITLE: Balls Up
SERIES: Blowing It #2
AUTHOR: Kate Aaron
PUBLISHER: Croft House
LENGTH: 310 Pages
BLURB:
Owen Barnes’s life is finally going the way he wants. He’s making a living as an author, and his relationship with building surveyor Magnus Cassidy is going from strength to strength.
When Owen finds a lump, he buries his head in the sand. He’s too busy for doctor appointments and besides, it’s probably nothing. He pushes concern away and is soon swept up in a whirlwind of distractions. His best friend’s husband is falling apart and Owen needs to be strong for them, not burdening them with his fears.
He says he’ll deal with it when the new book is released, when Ryan and Sameer are more stable, when he’s done writing. Owen has a hundred excuses to hide one simple fact: he’s scared.
Eventually Magnus drags him to the doctor, and the news isn’t good. Can Owen cope with the unexpected turn events have taken, or is his perfect life about to go balls up?
REVIEW:
When I sit down to read, the purpose for me is to escape reality. Whether it’s to faraway places among the stars, to a ranch out in the middle of nowhere, I read to escape. So what do I do, how do I handle, a book so real and full of the ups and downs of life that I’m left broken and wounded, but ultimately healed? I got to the brutal portions of the book, and my hands literally refused to put down my kindle because I had to finish, no matter how raw and harsh and immediately real things became.
Balls Up by the talented and intelligent Kate Aaron was a treat. I read the first book, Blowing It, directly before I started the second, and I’m glad I did. I noticed that Ms. Aaron did something few authors are capable of: she preserved the individual voices and unique personality of the characters that most authors struggle to find again in separate and subsequent books of a series. Owen and Magnus, our two leads, were exactly the same as they were in the first book, and yet at the same time, more than they were before. More substance, more heft—and I was undeniably fond of them, so when the bad crept in, I felt everything even more keenly than if I’d been a stranger to the characters.
Owen gave me chills with his stubborn fear, realizing that I would have denied and refuted everything just as he did in the beginning when he found the lump, and then got diagnosed with cancer. Once his diagnosis truly hits him, Owen carries on with not stoicism, but denial born out of an innate ability to recognize that he can’t think about everything, or it’ll break him. He gets through the chemo and the radiotherapy by not thinking about it, by avoiding thoughts of the future or the what-ifs, instead relying heavily on Magnus to carry him through to the end.
Now don’t go thinking that Owen takes advantage of Magnus and his ready and willing love and support; Owen repeatedly attempts to lighten the burden of caring for an ill loved one, even to his own detriment. Magnus is exactly who we’d all hope to have by our sides in the event our own lives were threatened by such a pernicious disease as cancer. He is strong, and caring, thorough and thoughtful, and the love he has for Owen comes through with every gesture and word, every look in his lovely eyes. He makes sacrifices for Owen, and while he fears the consequences of his choices, absolutely nothing keeps him from taking care of Owen and remaining dedicated to his lover’s health and well-being.
I must admit, that before reading Blowing it, and now Balls Up, I’d never read a book by Kate Aaron before, and I am literally kicking myself for the oversight. I have a major crush on brainy, knowledgeable, and well-read authors who can not only spin a romantic tale full of emotions, but who can meld the angst with the right turn of phrase, the sexy sentence structure, the back-handed masterpiece of a perfectly formulated plot and character evolution. Kate Aaron has it all. Skill, talent, and a hell of a penchant for some realistic sexy-times that left me in need of a cold libation.
Balls Up has it all. Kate Aaron is a pro, and this book proves it. She broke my heart, made me want to search WebMD and call my family and say ‘I love you’ just in case; she made me fear for the HEA and the fate of bratty and sweet Owen, and I am nursing a killer book-hangover to prove it. She broke me apart, and then put me back together, just like her characters.
Don’t let the title fool you, or the book description put you off—Balls Up is worth the time and the tears.
RATING: 
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