Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Coming Back 
SERIES: The Belladonna Arms #3
AUTHOR: John Inman
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 pages
BLURB:
Barney Teegarden knows what it’s like to be alone. He knows what it’s like to have a romantic heart, yet no love in his life to unleash the romance on. With the help of a friend, he acquires a lease in a seedy apartment building perched high on a hill in downtown San Diego. The Belladonna Arms is not only filled with the quirkiest cast of characters imaginable, it is also famous for sprinkling love dust on even the loneliest of the lovelorn.
At the Arms, Barney finds friendship, acceptance, and an adopted family that lightens his lonely life. Hell, he even finds a cat. But still true love eludes him.
When his drag queen landlord, Arthur, takes it into his head to rescue a homeless former tenant, he enlists Barney’s help. It is Barney who shows this lost soul how to trust again—and in return Barney discovers love for the first time in his life.
It’s funny how even the hardest battles can be fought and won with laughter, hugs, friends, plus a little faith in the goodness of others. All it takes to begin the healing is the simple act of coming back.
REVIEW:
When Barney’s friend and coworker, Pete, gets him an apartment in the Belladonna Arms, he is pretty excited. Ok, well that might be overselling it a bit. He is happy…to have somewhere to go. And the rent is cheap and the people who populate the Belladonna sure do seem unique. He not sure if he is sold on this whole ‘love pollen’ thing that everyone is talking about, but hey, if it happens that would be great.
He never expected that he would find love in the oddest of all places–under a highway overpass. Or that the man he falls in love with has quite a bit of baggage, even if very few actual possessions. And trying to get his man to recognize that he has friends and someone to love, right there at his doorstep, might be a bit of a tall order for boring old Barney. But he is certainly willing to give it his all.
I was glad to see that there was going to be a third book in this series. The odd-ball collection of characters in these books have been a lot of fun to read about, and sometimes you just need a bit of fluff in your life. Coming Back sure gives you that.
I’ll admit that I had a bit of a hard time, initially, getting into this book. A lot of the beginning had the felling of “lets catch up with everyone” and so it was kinda hard to hold my interest. And while I enjoy all the craziness that is this cast of characters, it was starting to feel like they were taking over the story. I’m generally a person who likes to focus on the MCs and let the ensemble move around in the background. The first half of this book kinda felt like it was trying to call attention to all of the other characters–probably in an effort to give Barney and Ramon some time to figure their shit out–and I wish it had stuck with the MCs, no matter how much I love Sylvia.
It probably doesn’t help that I have never been much of an Arthur fan. His is just a bit to boisterous for my frail sensibilities.
But once Barney and Ramon finally get together, I totally fell in love with their story. Ramon’s brokenness and guilt is very well written here. And Barney’s loving persistence really balanced out Ramon’s reticence. The fact that they didn’t fall into many tropes (i.e. “I’m not worthy of you so I must flee in all haste w/o ever giving you a chance to have a say in this relationship”) was a bonus. Ramon is one of my favorites out of the Belladonna, and after the last book, I was thrilled to see that he got his HEA. He deserved it.
In the end, once Barney and Ramon got together this became a really enjoyable story. And I started to remember why I loved this series to begin with. While the first half was probably only a three-star read for me, the last half was easily a four. So I think three and a half about sums it up nicely. If you have been reading this series, I would say that you will probably like this. I would rec that if you haven’t started this series yet, to go back to book one and start there.
RATING:
BUY LINKS: