Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Redesigning Max
SERIES: Foothill Pride #2
AUTHOR: Pat Henshaw
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 98 Pages
BLURB:
Renowned interior designer Fredi Zimmer is surprised when outdoorsman Max Greene, owner of Greene’s Outdoors, hires Fredi to revamp his rustic cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Fredi is an out-and-proud Metro male whose contact with the outdoors is from his car to the doorway of the million-dollar homes he remodels, and Max is just too hunky for words.
When Max comes on to Fredi, the designer can’t imagine why. But he’s game to put a little spice into Max’s life, even if it’s just in the colors and fixtures he’ll use to turn Max’s dilapidated cabin into a showplace. Who can blame a guy for adding a little sensual pleasure as he retools Max’s life visually?
Max, for his part, is grateful when Fredi takes him in hand, both metaphorically and literally. Coming out is the most exciting and wonderful time in his life, despite the conservative former friends who think they’re saving him from sliding into hell.
REVIEW:
We’re back for the next installment in Pat Henshaw’s Foothill Pride series. As many of you might remember, I raved about What’s in a Name when I reviewed it back in January. I loved that book and have been looking forward to the continuation of the series.
This time we’re focusing on Fredi Zimmer, the over the top architect/interior designer we met in the first book in the series, who was responsible for the redo of the coffee shop that his friend Jimmy co-owns. We don’t hear much from Jimmy and Guy in this book, which was a little disappointing. I thought there would be a redo of the Stonewall Saloon in this installment, and some continuation of the characters, but we didn’t go there, except for a couple brief mentions.
Fredi has moved to town and he is sitting in the coffee shop one morning when he is approached by a tall hunk of a man, who says his name is Max Greene, and who says he would like Fredi to help him on the interior of his cabin. After checking with the café’s staff and finding out the guy is on the up and up, Fredi jumps in the guy’s monster truck and heads 40 minutes out into the woods to see the cabin. Did I mention he is dressed in a vintage teal sharkskin suit, with a fire engine red shirt and antique ivory lace tie? My eyeballs hurt and I couldn’t even see it! Not the best attire to head up into the mountains in a monster truck to look at a remote log cabin!
What will happen when they get to the cabin and it smells like something died inside? What will happen when Max comes on to Fredi in front of a bunch of conservative rednecks and they throw a fit over Fredi “turning” Max homosexual?
There isn’t much else that I can say without doing more spoilers than are already in the blurb and discussed above. To sum up the book, I would say it has some drama, some action, some homophobes and a kind of cutesy love story that seemed to lack enough details to make me happy.
It seems authors are moving more and more to novellas. I know many readers in this genre enjoy that length story and less details. But I particularly didn’t like getting to 85% and finding the end of the book, with the beginning of the next book conveniently packaged onto the end of this one. As I’m reading a book, I’m always looking at the percentage read so I know how much more story I have….when it ends prematurely it bugs me. It bugs me a lot.
As with the first book in the series, all sex occurs in fade to black. I think the book could have benefited from some sex, as I did on book one as well, but that was the author’s choice. The romance aspect was a little understated on this one as well. This book can easily be read as a standalone, but I’d recommend reading What’s in a Name? as well. Book one was fantastic, but keeping it real, all in all, I am going to have say this current installment fits best with a rating of Liked It/Above Average. It could have been great with more details. Although I enjoyed reading the book and look forward to hearing from the three Behr brothers down the road, I seriously hope book three has a little more oomph than this current one.
RATING: 
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