Reviewed by Dan & Dani

 

TITLE:    Snowed In

AUTHOR:     Teodora Kostova

PUBLISHER:  Self Published

LENGTH:     108 Pages

BLURB:

Be careful what you wish for…

Nate has been in love with Quinn, his brother’s best friend, for as long as he can remember. But when he finally gets the chance to show Quinn how he feels, his heart gets broken in the most unexpected way.

Second chances come when you least expect them…

Quinn doesn’t believe in miracles, especially not Christmas ones. When he decides to win Nate back he knows it won’t be easy. The last thing he expects is a health scare, a road trip and a vicious snow storm to work in his favor.

In the end, a cabin in the woods turns out to be not only the shelter they desperately need, but also Quinn’s very own Christmas miracle.

Sometimes, to forgive, you need to get snowed in…

DAN’S REVIEW:

(Spoiler warning – My review contains spoilers necessary to explain why I’ve rated the story as I have.  If you don’t want spoilers, you should probably skip down to Dani’s Review below.)

This is one of those books that Dani and I are going to have a very sharp difference of opinion on. Dani read it first and told me it was one of her favorite books of the year. I can’t even begin to say how far her and my tastes are different.  This book, in my opinion, was totally lacking in any degree of excitement.  It will go on my list as one of the least favorable books I’ve read this entire year.  The characters were flat, and honestly the story was not believable at all.  I repeat…at all!

In my opinion, as someone who has been through his own brain tumor, (the correct spelling BTW if the story is set in the US), I resented the way the off screen story of Kai’s brain tumor was used as an excuse for Quinn’s running off right after having sex with Nate the first time. He left for TWO YEARS, never responded to a single email, text or anything, and then when Kai kicks the bucket, he comes back to Nate. After a very brief show of anger on Nate’s part, all is forgiven, there are rainbows and puppy dogs and blah, blah, blah. I call Bullshit. If some man leaves me for two years with ZERO explanation, and then comes back from watching his friend die and tells me it was for my own good that he hid it from me…? I might forgive him, but not in the “OK, let’s jump in bed” way it was portrayed in this novella.

And what about Nate’s brother Brandon who is supposedly Quinn’s best friend?  Did he also never hear from Quinn in two years? Did he not know what Quinn was going through? In the three years since my own tumor was removed, I’ve gone through tons of radiation treatments and chemotherapy, which is still ongoing. I’ve lost several friends from our local brain tumor support group during that time, and the final decline as someone loses their brain functions is a devastating thing to witness. Quinn would have needed a lot of support during those two years. Since he was raised as almost a third son in Nate’s and Brandon’s family, wouldn’t he look there for emotional support?

In summary. I disliked the story…very much.  I didn’t like the shallow characters, who I never connected with at all. I didn’t like the flat, almost boring, lacking in detail and totally unbelievable story.  For reasons I’ve stated above, I didn’t like the author’s casual use of a friend’s brain cancer as an excuse for Quinn’s taking off.  There was a fair amount of sex, if that is what you’re into…but even that was dull and truthfully I skimmed those sections. I’m going to give it a 2.0. It was Mediocre at best, in my opinion.  If this wasn’t a duo review with Dani, I personally would have rated it even lower. 🙁

DAN’S RATING:

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DANI’S REVIEW:

Like Dan said, we are so disagreeing on this.  It couldn’t be more different from my view.  I loved these men, the connection, the way they interacted, the Chemistry, the insecurity to name a few things.

I read this as a Christmas story just for fun which I didn’t intend to review, but I loved it so much it was one of my favorite reads of the last month. When Dan told me that he really didn’t like it, I suggested to put my own view in this as I honestly believe that you can look at this story from a completely different viewpoint.

Like I said, I did feel the connection with the characters.  I loved Nate, his adorableness in the beginning, but also his stubborn and pissed off attitude when Quinn returns after two years. Brandon, who has been in contact with Quinn and knows what happened tries his best to be a supportive big brother as well a best friend. Where in the meantime we find out he still is together with his own love from two years before and that they are expecting.

The story starts as it says with Nate finally getting his wish being together with Quinn his brother’s best friend , his own dear friend as well but also the love of his life. Finally things work out and they share magic together right up till Quinn leaves Nate. The author nicely split this story in two parts and this sums up part 1.

In part two we see Brandon taking Quinn to Nate, who finally stepped up and decided to go to collage like people had been telling him to do. We meet Nate in a surprising situation , nice touch by the author , and we see Quinn stand strong. Quinn is determined to make sure he will get what he has been wanting for years now and that is Nate.

When we find out why Quinn left two years ago, I could feel the emotion, I could understand why he decided to stay with Kai. My only critic in this story is why it needed to be secret? You would expect seeing the family Nate and also Brandon come from, that they would have been supportive and helpful.

When Quinn and Nate travel home in what was supposed to be a brother outing , we see the connection is still there, there is so much love between these two men that you know they need to end up together.

The author made sure to write some wonderful erotic scenes to spread the love these two man shared, two years ago but definitely when they reconnect during the road trip and the storm they run into.

A wonderful Christmas story that I enjoyed immensely 🙂

DANI’S RATING:

 

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BUY LINK: 

Amazon