Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: The District Line
SERIES: The District Line – Book 1
AUTHOR: C.F. White
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 271 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 3, 2016
BLURB:
Jay Rutland only ever wanted to be one thing; a professional footballer. A disastrous brawl on the pitch has him released from his pro-Academy and living his backup plan as a university Sports Scholar. Head down, train hard and get scouted is his mantra. Until the day he crashes into the man who may just shoot all that to hell.
Mike Saunders only ever wanted to be one thing; a Rock Star. His father has other plans for him. Live it up, chase the dream and rock out is his mantra. Until he crashes into the man who may just change his tune.
Mike and Jay live opposite ends of the District Line in London. Separated by wealth, status and their own life-long dreams, this modern-day romance trilogy series is a story of overcoming barriers, facing fears and beating rejection to finally get the love you need to achieve it all.
REVIEW:
A brand new author’s first time offering.
Jay Rutland is attending the University after an incident got him removed from a star position with a premier football team, severely hampering his chances to be drafted as a professional footballer. He is extremely regimented in his life. He treats his body as a temple, works hard in all things important to him…school, sports, training and conditioning, family and his best friend Ann, his childhood friend. When Jay accidentally runs into Mike Saunders, at the end of his grueling run, sparks ignite in him. Mike is a fellow student and aspiring Rock Star that preforms, along with his band that he headlines, at the Underground, a bar on campus. He is also the son of an extremely rich businessman who has always been too busy for his only child, especially after his wife abandons them both. A son who is openly gay. “The District Line” is the story of how these two young men navigate the waters of trying a relationship.
Jay is only out to his best friend Ann, who he has been best friends with since she moved next door at eight years of age. The natural progression was for them to start dating and live happily ever after. The only problem with that is that Jay is gay. Hiding deep in the closet gay but still gay. He fells awful for devastating Ann in high school so he acts as her “pretend” boyfriend when she needs to make a guy jealous. That all changes when Mike and Jay meet up and start exploring their chemistry. Both Jay and Mike tug at your heartstrings. Jay, because he is afraid of what it would do for his football career, what we call soccer here in the US, if it was ever discovered that he is gay. And Mike, who is literally the poor little rich kid. Neither know how to get out from under all the baggage surrounding them.
One of the things I had a problem with was how the book’s point-of-view was written. You would be in the middle of a paragraph, believing Mike was talking, and all of a sudden you were in Jay’s head. I’m not just saying it was Mike in one paragraph speaking and it transitioning to Jay in the next paragraph, which also happened, but I’m saying within one paragraph you had both Mike and Jay’s POV. It just jumped all over the place as to who was talking or thinking. I finally fell in sync with the style but it was really difficult to follow at first and it easily took me out of the moment in the story.
Now for the real kicker…this is a cliffhanger! Upon reading up a bit after I finished the book I discovered that the author plans for this to be a trilogy, with the next book currently in editing and due out before Christmas. That being said, I finished the book with a “What the Heck???” moment! Nothing in the blurb had stated it was part of a series until I started investigating and found the author had announced today that it was going to be a series. I had started to get very anxious when I looked at the bottom of the page I was reading and it was at 97%. Although I am genuinely interested in reading the next book, I was a bit put-off that I had not been warned that this book was part of a series or that it was a major cliffhanger. Looking forward to getting off that cliff fast!
RATING: 
BUY LINK: