REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Shelter Me
SERIES: Heven Book 1
AUTHOR: Megan Reddaway
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 209 Pages
RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2017
BLURB:
Leo Park is an empath on the run. He’s escaped the secret research facility where he’s been held since he was six years old, but how can he survive without being captured? He has no money, all his ideas come from old movies, and he’s carrying his baby brother, smuggled out in a carton.
Cole Millard lives by his own rules in the Oregon woods, refusing to fear the world war that’s coming closer every day. Now his freedom is threatened by a naive 19-year-old with a baby in tow and a spooky way of knowing what Cole is feeling. But Leo is vulnerable and desperate. What’s a guy to do?
Shelter Me is a dystopian gay romance novel set in a not-too-distant future, with a hot backwoodsman, a desperate fugitive, a six-month-old baby, and the world on the brink of an apocalyptic war.
REVIEW:
I took a shot with this book, as I’m not usually a big fan of this particular genre and the title was a little off-putting for me. I think Shelter Me: Heven Book 1 would have sufficed.
However, the story turned out to be so much better than the title.
Leo is a young man whose whole life has been taken over by a secret government agency. The only thing that makes him happy is his little brother Jae. He goes along with whatever the people at the institute want, because he doesn’t know what else to do.
Until Jae is threatened.
That’s the final straw for Leo and it’s his impetus for making a break for it. So he grabs Jae and runs. He tries hard, but having lived in the institute for most of his life, he’s unprepared for the real world and it’s challenges.
Cole is a man who’s hiding from the world and its uncertain future. When Leo and Jae fall into his life, it’s turned upside-down and at first he resents the hell out of it.
But it doesn’t take long for Cole to get emotionally invested in Leo and his little brother and they soon find themselves on the run together, looking for a safe place to wait out the coming events and build a future.
The writer does a great job of building a world for their characters to live in. We are given enough information so that we can understand Cole’s fear of what’s coming and Leo’s determination to make life better not only for Jae but for Cole and himself as well.
I think my only complaint is that at the beginning, the trust builds too fast between them. In a world where everyone is being constantly spied on, I think the wariness and self-preservation should have lasted a little longer, if nothing else, to build the anticipation a little longer.
The writing was good in this story, as was the editing. I tend to get tripped up by too many grammar and spelling issues in a book so proper editing is important, especially in a self-pubbed book. Too often authors think that they don’t need anyone’s help to go through their books and it’s sometimes a bad mistake.
I got swept up in this story and dammit, now I’m invested in a series. Something I usually try to avoid because I don’t like to make that much of a commitment! Lol. So now I will be waiting to see what happens in book 2. I want to know what happens after Leo and Cole get where they’re going. I hope you are as intrigued as I was!
RATING: 
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