Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: I See You
SERIES: Come To Your Senses #1
AUTHOR: Susan Reeves
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 233 Pages
RELEASE DATE: February 20, 2016
BLURB:
Christian Sartori: Surveillance officer, facial recognition guru and aspiring surfing god.
Ben McCormick: Casino games dealer, couch surfer and down on his luck.
Christian falls for Ben’s Raphaelite-like beauty the very first moment he sees him, dealing at a busy pai gow table, but fraternisation between their departments is strictly forbidden. Christian instead catches glimpses through the cameras at work, hoping management won’t notice he has “eyes on” Ben more than he should.
When Ben is brutally attacked as he leaves work one night, Christian is fortunately watching and comes to his aid. This starts them on a road that travels from friendship to more as they both deal with injuries, a career change, the farce that is Valentine’s Day, and a mother with a crippling gambling addiction.
I See You is a story about love, compassion and helping out your fellow man, which can sometimes bring you things you never thought possible.
REVIEW:
I’m always cautious about trying new authors because I don’t want to have to turn around and hate all over their book. But I was eyeing this book on Amazon for the last few weeks, so when a request for a review came through to the blog, I took that as a sign that I should take this baby for a spin. And I’m really glad that I did.
Christian Sartori is brilliant at his job as a surveillance officer at a Gold Coast casino. So brilliant in fact, that he can manage to do his job while sneakily keeping one eye on cute dealer (cards – not drugs), Ben. Technically his borderline stalking is a no-no, but it turns out that his crush is the best thing that could have happened to Ben when he’s attacked one night walking to his car after work. Turns out that poor Ben has nothing and no one, so nice guy Christian decides to take him home.
Firstly, I absolutely loved the setting for this book. I’m not overly familiar with the Gold Coast (which is on the east coast of Australia) but it is a place that I’ve been to several times. In fact, I can only assume that the casino that Christian and Ben work at is Jupiter’s, which is a hotel that I’ve stayed at previously. So obviously, I was a little excited to read a story that was set there. But even for those readers that are unfamiliar with the location, I think the author did a great job of conveying the fast paced buzz of a casino environment. It gives the work scenes a sense of that frantic energy, even though Christian sees most of it as routine. I always enjoy a story that presents us with a job I’m unfamiliar with and shows us a bit of behind on the job action.
The characters, I must admit, were well-loved stereotypes, but that isn’t something I personally have a problem with. They’re well loved for a reason, right? The tough, gentle giant and the cute twink in need of help…as long as it’s well executed those are stereotypes that I’m never going to have a problem with. I did love both of these characters. And this was one of the very rare times that I didn’t have an issue with cutesy nicknames, so well done to the author for pulling that off.
I had two issues with this book that I feel warrant a mention. My main problem was with the point of view switches. Most of the story was told in Christian’s point of view, but we did also get to hear from Ben and occasionally a secondary character or two. The problem was that these transitions weren’t always clear. A few times I had actually read almost of a page before realizing that I was now in the head of a completely different character and I’d need to go back and read it again. It didn’t help that Christian and Ben had very similar “voices” when we’d switch from one to the other.
My other problem (well, problem might be too strong a word) was with the pacing of the story. Some scenes seemed to take a long time to get through, especially at the beginning of the book. Contrarily, while I enjoyed hearing about Christian’s job, I have a feeling that’s what slowed down the beginning of the story. Then, once the two men moved in together, time would skip forward by weeks. And while I understand why the author did that, that Ben needed to heal and gain some confidence back, it made it hard to swallow those “I love yous” when they were just dropped out there. I missed experiencing the two men growing closer, which is obviously an important part of a romance.
But overall, this book gets a big thumbs up. I’d be happy to check out more books by this author in the future.
Ooooh, I forgot to mention the epilogue, didn’t I? Epic. Awesomely epic! But it really drives home the fact that marriage equality has yet to find its way to Australian shores.
RATING: 
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