Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  A Love to Remember

AUTHOR:  Sarah Hadley Brook

PUBLISHER:  JMS Books

LENGTH:  85 pages

RELEASE DATE:  April 28, 2018

BLURB:  

Graham Hayes decided long ago he’d never be in a relationship. It was better to stay single than to fall in love only to be left alone, which he was certain would happen to him. He’d seen Alzheimer’s ravage his family members all his life, leaving their loved ones to deal with the fallout. Some of them stayed, but some didn’t. Graham isn’t going to risk it.

When he hires nurse Sam Morgan to take care of his dad during the day, his pledge to stay single is put to the test. He soon finds it difficult to maintain a professional distance.

Graham’s guarded his heart for so long, but his resolve is crumbling. Will he be able to conquer his fear to give himself a chance at love? Can he trust Sam to stick around for better or worse?

REVIEW:  

I liked the blurb of this story. The whole having to deal with a parent under the influence of Alzheimer’s is one I have read before, and really liked what those authors have done with how the disease affects not only the one diagnosed with the disorder, but those surrounding them. And I have to admit that I can kinda get where Graham is coming from with his whole hesitancy to get into a long-term relationship when he has a good chance of ending up in his father’s shoes in a couple decades. Both those things, at their basics were a good ground to build a story upon.

However I came away feeling like this story wasted pretty much all its potential. Maybe due to its short length–thereby restricting the amount of time each plot element had to really grow–or  just a desire on the author’s part to keep the tone fairly lighthearted, I can’t tell. The fact remains though that I left this story not even a bit more invested in these characters than I was when I started it.

The chemistry between the two MCs was, for me at least, nonexistent. I just felt nothing going or coming between them. Even when they were coming. It felt all so very surface level with them. It didn’t help that their original meet-cute was in a very cliched club-hookup that did absolutely nothing for me. It worked a little better when Sam shows up to help care for Graham’s father…but I couldn’t get away from the slightly off feeling I got from the fact that it has to be–even if only slightly–unethical to fuck the nurse you hired to care for your sick relative. I do appreciate that the author held back from having them declare their love for each other after only a couple weeks (at best) of acquaintance, but that is kind of a hollow victory when you consider that I didn’t care one way or the other what happened with their relationship.

I also found the secondary characters–what few of them there are–to be rather stock stereotypes. Especially Graham’s best friend Marc who was a rather obvious Gay Best Friend stereotype. I can’t say that I find those kinds of characters any more palatable when paired with other gay men than I do with female protags. Marc never felt like he existed outside his designated role as a mirror to Graham’s own desires to fuck around for the rest of his life–or for playing his role in the very cliched “romantic interest wildly misinterprets two men in the same room as a hookup” scene. I get that this is a short story so time is limited, but to be honest I’m not sure what Marc added to the story that would have been wildly missed by just taking him out entirely and tossing the whole cliched mess in the dumpster.

This story was not something I can rant about, but it was also not something that I can recommend with any kind of fervor. It was, at best, harmless. I can think of about several dozen other stories that use this same trope to much better results, though. I would have also been able to give it more props if it had the guts to stick with an ending where Graham opened that damn envelope to find out the answer to if he had inherited the gene from his father. Had it done that–and hell if it had ended with Graham indeed having the possibility of Alzheimer’s in his future–I could at least award it some bonus points for having the guts to say that that is something Graham and Sam are willing to deal with. But it decided to just go with a rather bland, “maybe they’ll find out later” ending. Leaving me feeling not a whole lot other than happy that I can move on to some other story now.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

JMS Books

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