Reviewed by Tori (Vicki)
TITLE: Edward Unconditionally 
SERIES: Common Powers #3
AUTHOR: Lynn Lorenz
PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing
LENGTH: 223 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 22nd 2017
BLURB:
Edward is on a mission to save his grandmother by using his power. Jack is on a mission to never come out of the closet. It’ll take a dog named Winston to bring them together.
When Jack meets Edward at a traffic stop, his world is rocked—and not for the better. Edward is the gayest man he’s ever seen, and Spring Lake is a small town just getting comfortable with its own new gay couple, Brian Russell and Rush Weston. Unlike Edward, Rush and Brian are big, strapping, manly men. But manly isn’t what turns Jack on. It’s Edward—everything about the younger man drives Jack wild with desire and the need to control Edward’s wild, impetuous spirit.
For Edward, his attraction to ‘bad boys’ has been his romantic downfall. His heart’s been broken so many times he’s lost count. When he meets Jack, Edward falls for the all-American by-the-book lawman, but finds his attempts rebuffed and his pride severely wounded. Jack’s straight, or at least says he is, but Edward knows that look in Jack’s eyes, he’s seen it before from other men. How can a man so right be so wrong?
Edward tempts Jack beyond anyone he’s ever met and his desire for Edward builds each time he encounters the younger man, until he can no longer deny it or himself. But Edward doesn’t want sex on the side, he wants forever. He wants the fairy tale.
Can Jack give Edward what he wants or will Jack’s fear of being ridiculed for his choice of a partner keep them from their Happily Ever After?
REVIEW:
We first met Jack in the last book, he was the Chief of Police who offered Brian a job in Spring Lake, the small Texas town where Rush lives. Edward is a new character, we meet him as he is streaming into town on his mother’s orders, to check on his grandmother Olivia. Edward is pulled over after he flies past a cop, who turns out to be Jack. Jack is surprised when the man he pulls over exits his vehicle with his dog, who immediately bites Jack on the ankle. Jack manages to not shoot the dog or the man, and somehow agrees to care for the dog for a few days until Edward can provide proof of Winston’s rabies vaccination.
The two men go their separate ways, Edward meeting up with the grandmother he hasn’t seen in 20 years, and Jack off with Winston the bulldog to his house for the weekend. We also learn that Jack has a health issue of some sort, causing massive headaches and blurred vision. We also learn that Edward has a secret talent, and is able to help Jack when he stops by one evening. Edward is able to get acquainted with his grandmother, and learns that she too has a health issue….
Basically this story is a series of interactions between Edward and Jack, lots of miscommunications, over-reactions, and arguments. There are a couple of times where I could see an attraction between them, and I liked those times just fine, but there was not enough of that for me to really see them as a couple. Until the end of the book that is, when something dramatic happens that brings them together beautifully.
Winston was a treat, although it bothered me how many times the author referred to him as the “little dog” or “little bulldog”. I’m not sure little is the best way to describe an adult male, intact bulldog! I did have an issue with the whole thing with Winston randomly biting Jack, and Jack’s reaction was completely unrealistic. There is no way a cop, having been bitten by a dog, would then spend the weekend caring for that dog. There was no explanation as to why Edward wasn’t able to immediately call his vet and have Winston’s shot record faxed over, it seemed like it was a Friday afternoon. Why was there a wait until Monday? Are vet offices not open on Friday afternoons, or Saturdays?
But if I ignore all of the little things that bothered me, it was an okay story. I liked Jack, I liked Edward, I liked Olivia, I liked the basic plot of Edward’s family issues and his visit to his grandmother. I wish there had been more pleasant interactions between Edward and Jack, and less of it being based on the Big Misunderstanding. Basically I feel like parts of it worked and parts of it didn’t. I like the way the author writes, even though I didn’t love the plot, if that makes sense…
If you can ignore the unrealistic plot, and focus on the characters, this is worth reading. If you tend to focus on little things like the dog bite issue, then this might not be the book for you. I did enjoy reading it on a rainy afternoon though, and I look forward to the next one.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
I work in the vet industry, and it’s entirely possible the vet may have left early on a Friday (or even closed all day) and gone out of town for a long weekend. More vets than you may think don’t work on the weekend, especially if they are a 1 vet practice (and especially if there is a 24/7 emergency clinic within an hour that they can refer folks to).
Many vets are also not very good with technology, so the office may not have a software with a customer portal, that allows clients 24/7 access to their pets medical records.
I do think that anyone who calls an intact male bulldog “little” (when they are easily 70lbs or more) is someone not familiar with them lol If I were Edward I would not have taken him home with me – I would have let him sit at the local shelter in quarantine until the records were sent. But having grown up in a small town, I’ve seen odd things happen, so maybe it’s a Spring Lake’s thing 🙂