REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Taking the Long Way
AUTHOR: Max MacGowan
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 234 Pages
RELEASE DATE: February 12, 2016
Blurb:
Male escort Rye Bellamy is looking for a way out. Any way out. He’s getting older, and clients are getting more dangerous. If he doesn’t find something better, he knows he won’t survive.
He sees his chance in Marcus Townsend, a functionally blind Army veteran. Marcus, who refuses to accept his condition as immutable, has a shot at seeing a specialist who might be able to help him—but that doctor’s based on the other side of the country.
When Rye and Marcus meet, they realize they can help each other. Marcus can’t drive, but Rye can. Marcus knows what Rye is, but he likes him anyway. In fact, he more than likes him. Driving cross-country with a near stranger is a daunting task, but Rye’s biggest risk is falling for the gentle, stubborn-hearted soldier—and it might already be too late to stop that.
They plan to part ways when they reach their destination, but plans change as the affection between them grows. Now neither wants their journey to end, but continuing means finding a way to bridge the distance between who they were and who they’d like to become.
Review:
I’m a sucker for all kinds of things in this book. Ex-soldier? Check! Sex worker with a big heart? Double check. Road trip that changes your life? Three out of three and this one is a home run.
Rye is a man who wants a better life. He maybe started out looking for it in the wrong place, but he knows that there has to be more to life than what he has if he can only figure out a way to get to it. And then Marcus wanders into his life and changes everything.
Marcus is trying hard to find a way to approach the new world he’s left with after life altering injuries that occurred while he was on duty take away the only way he knows. He’s tired of being treated like he’s broken and the only one who doesn’t is his niece, until he meets Rye.
They click from the first moment and can’t seem to get out of each other’s heads. When an opportunity comes up that offers them both a way out of the situations they are in, Marcus jumps at it and talks Rye into taking the chance with him. They set off on a road trip and the reader gets to go along for the ride.
Along the way they meet some interesting characters, like the lovely couple that gives them a place to stay and they both come to some conclusions about their own lives and how they’re going to live them.
They start a sort of friends-with-benefits kind of relationship, but it’s clear from the start that they both feel so much more than either one will let one to the other. It’s sweet and caring and protective on both sides, and the way it seems to take them both by surprise made me smile all the way through the book.
Of course there’s some angst and a few tears along the way, but it only makes the ending that much sweeter.
I was swept along completely by the story and when it was over, I was sad because I wanted to know so much more about them. I loved watching them find their way to each other as they overcame the obstacles that their own lives threw at them.
A thoroughly enjoyable read that makes me want to look for everything this author might have written.
Rating: 
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