REVIEWED by Jen B.

TITLE: Contentment

AUTHOR: Casper Graham

PUBLISHER: JMS Books

LENGTH: 211 Pages

RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2017

BLURB: 

Michael Weston is recently promoted, becoming the youngest head of a branch of secret agents. His lover of two years, Timothy Miller, has finally moved in with him and they both work for the same organization. At the moment, Michael’s satisfied with his wonderful life.

The first case he has to personally deal with is a mysterious murder, but Michael can’t make heads or tails of it. All the clues lead to dead ends. It certainly doesn’t help when he discovers his high school bully and crush Ian Davis is somehow involved.

Things get worse when Ian confesses to harboring years of infatuation for Michael, which pisses Timothy off. Meanwhile, the number of casualties in the murder case keeps increasing.

Will the three men be able to find a mutually satisfying solution? And can Michael solve the murders before someone else is killed?

This starts out very promising with a pretty cover and interesting blurb.  Michael and Tim are partners who live together and work in the top two positions overseeing a company of secret agents.  The story begins with Tim returning from a 3 month long mission.  They quickly find themselves in the middle of a murder mystery they need to solve.

Ian comes into the picture as the PA to the guy who was murdered.  He also happens to be the guy who bullied Mike all through high school.  Both men were apparently harboring deep crushes at the time.  Turns out that Ian has never gotten over his infatuation with Mike, rejecting all offers due to being hung up on Mike.

I struggled quite a bit with this story, almost from the start.  It had a lot of potential, but I believe it could have used the help of a serious beta reader.  There was a pretty big lack of emotional connection between these characters.  Tim returned after three months away, yet the men acted as though they were roommates just meeting each other.  It didn’t take long for them to get to the sex though, but as soon as that happened, there was an enormous overuse of terms, such as “lover.”  Things moved on until Ian played a bigger role.  Almost immediately, Tim pushed Michael to date both him and Ian.  While Ian was reluctant at first, he came around, and both he and Tim agreed to Mike’s stipulation that all three had to date each other.  After one dinner, they were all on the same page, and next thing you know, they were having sex and Ian was moving in.  In the span of one night.  From there, it was all “babe” this and “babe” that.  Way too much for me to enjoy, and the speed in which everything happened didn’t allow for any real connections to be felt.

The mystery was a bit crazy as well, but that took up the rest of the story.  Oftentimes, the sentences felt too stilted or proper, with names being used regularly, especially with Mike’s PA, Terrence.  It distracted me from the story and again felt overused.  Again, this story had a lot of potential, but I think if it had been a bit more fleshed out and given a slightly more realistic feel, I would have a much different outlook.