Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Making Waves 
SERIES: Wrench Wars #4
AUTHOR: Marie Sexton
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 76 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 28th, 2016
BLURB:
A Wrench Wars Story
Best friends since they were teenagers, Ward Kent and Dean Zimmerman work together at Reggie’s garage, where the reality show Wrench Wars is filmed. Outside of work, Dean is a notorious player, and as far as he’s concerned, Ward’s the best wingman ever. Little does he know, Ward is much more interested in the gentlemen than the ladies.
Then Dean’s younger brother, Ash, comes to work at the garage. Ash may be seven years younger, but he’s had a crush on Ward for years, and he’s not shy about going after what he wants.
Admitting his best friend and his brother are gay is one thing. Seeing them together? That’s a bit more than Dean can take, and he’s about to force Ward to make a decision: lose his best friend and his job, or give up Ash forever.
REVIEW:
Hmmm…. I have mixed feelings about this book. Well, this whole series really. I get the idea, all of these little mini stories that take place around a “reality” television series called Wrench Wars, but I just can’t decide if it works. Each book has a couple, and a mostly complete story, and they all intertwine, but the TV show part of it is weird. It only vaguely has anything to do with the individual stories.
Like this one. Ward and Dean work at Reggie’s garage, one of the garages that is part of the Wrench Wars TV show. Ward is not part of the show, but Dean is. The two have been best friends forever, Ward having no family, except Dean’s family. Dean has a younger brother named Ash, who Ward hasn’t seen since he was a teenager. Ash moves in with Dean and gets a job at the garage. Ward and Ash start to hang out, and we find out they each have been crushing on the other, but the age difference when they were younger was too much and nothing ever came of it. So now something might happen…. But Dean is a total ASSHOLE and repeatedly tries to fuck it all up for Ash and Ward.
That’s about all there is to the story. Dean was such a horrible person, I had a hard time focusing on the two main characters. I kept getting caught up in my dislike of him. I didn’t really get the sense of bonding between Ash and Ward, since so much time was spent on Dean being an asshole, and Ward moping around.
But it is written by Marie Sexton, so it wasn’t a bad story! It was short, moved fast, was low angst, and had some brief but well done sex. I liked Ash and Ward, I wish we had gotten more of their background, to fully understand why they behave the way they do. I liked seeing the men from the past stories, and how they all worked together.
So I liked it, it was ok, but not great… Pretty much how I’ve felt about all of the books in this series. I think I expected it the books to be more about the actual show. It comes up now and then, but, I don’t know, I guess I was just expecting more somehow.
If you have read the other books in the series, you should read this one, it does fit in with the series. If you are looking for a fun short series, based around a garage, give these a try.
RATING:
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