Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Crossing Borders
AUTHOR: Z.A. Maxfield
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: 271 pages
BLURB:
Two dudes walk into a bookstore…
Tristan knows he’s got issues. His latest ex-girlfriend knows it too. He can’t blame her for dumping him—even though she gets her brother to do it for her. Since he can’t stop staring at said brother’s package, he figures it’s about time to put a label on those issues. He likes guys.
He heads to a local bookstore with what he’s sure is a foolproof plan to find someone to show him what he’s been missing. But who should crash his little adventure? Officer Michael Truax, who gave him a really expensive ticket back in high school for skateboarding without a helmet.
Michael has been trying to catch Tristan for years…to give him a second ticket. Suddenly faced with “Sparky”, all grown up and looking to get laid, Michael’s protective instinct kicks in—and presents him with an opportunity that’s hard to resist. After all, the kid must know what he’s getting into, so why not?
But when a man with a plan connects with a man with a hunger, the result is nothing short of explosive.
This book has been previously published.
Product Warnings: Contains high-octane hair, a clawfoot bathtub, and a story that will make you believe in love at first sight. Okay, second sight, but who’s counting?
REVIEW:
I first read this book years ago and wasn’t sure if I wanted to review it now or not. I remembered liking the story, but also remembered that I had reservations. However that cover is simply irresistible and I had to heed its call.
Heading over to Goodreads I was surprised to find that I had only rated this book three stars the first time around, because re-reading it now I enjoyed it a whole lot more than that. But it did jog my memory about one important issue I had with the book. It was the old cover. I remember now that I strongly disliked the original cover because I thought Tristan looked like a kid rather than the young man that he’s meant to be. I know, and was fully aware during my first read of the book, that this colored my perspective of the story and, right or wrong, relegated Michael to creepy cop status. It definitely impacted on my enjoyment years ago, when I first read this story. Which just goes to show how important a book’s cover can be, because this time around, those issues that I had about the characters’ age gap just melted away.
Nineteen-year-old Tristan has given up kidding himself that he prefers women to men. Not that he has definitive proof of that just yet; he’s never actually been with a man before, but when he hears some girls gossiping about Borders being the place to pick up, he heads over to gather his proof. But instead of finding a casual male hookup to experiment with, Tristan ends up landing the very last man he ever would have considered, his old nemesis, Officer Helmet.
Twenty eight year old cop, Michael Truax, fell hard for Tristan the first time he saw him, when the feisty redhead was only seventeen and was caught riding his skateboard without a helmet. But the kid was too young, too beautiful and too straight to lend Michael some hope that anything could ever happen. When Michael discovers Tristan at Borders, gay literature scattered across his table in an attempt to lure men over, he bravely puts it out there that he would be interested in being the man that Tristan is looking for.
It’s so strange to me that I didn’t really care for these characters together the first time around, because as I read it again, I was absolutely loving Michael and Tristan together! The moment when Tristan first looks at Michael as a man rather than the cop who once gave him a fine was so well written that it made complete sense to me. I could see how these two men could go from barely knowing each other to falling into a relationship over one weekend. It might not have been insta-love but it was pretty damn fast nonetheless, and there was no need to force my skeptical brain to accept it, because it totally worked.
The sex comes surprisingly fast considering that Tristan has only ever been with girls before, but again, it works. Okay, it more than works. It’s startlingly hot the way Tristan throws himself into sex with a man, as though he’s been starring in gay porn for the last few years. But their relationship is equal parts sweet and sexy…well actually, sweet probably wins out. My fellow reviewer Amber (apparently we’ve taken to quoting each other in our reviews now) says the story is rainbows and love and puppies. Luckily, rainbows and love and puppies are my very favourite things to read. It’s true, there’s a whole lot of mushy love and happy happy feelings smeared all through this book and I couldn’t be happier. Of course it’s not all smooth sailing but when the shit does hit the fan, you can feel the desperation that the MCs feel to make their relationship work. And the way that Michael and Tristan both love their mothers…oh god, that got them extra sweetness points.
I didn’t realize that this was the first book that Z.A. Maxfield published. The author explains in the beginning of the book that some ideas in this story may seem a little outdated now, such as Tristan’s realization that because he’s gay he’ll probably never have his own family. But I’m glad the story was left as is. Well…except for the cover. Who would have guessed that that one change could colour my perspective of a book so much. I am ridiculously glad that I reread Crossing Borders, if you haven’t checked it out yet I recommend that you do.
RATING:
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