Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: War Paint
SERIES: States of Love ( #39 Georgia)
AUTHOR: Sarah Black
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 88 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 25, 2018
BLURB:
There’s an art to love.
Mural artist Ben has come from Tel Aviv to Atlanta to work on a commission. A successful artist, he’s still lonely and isolated after his family’s rejection. Ben is charmed and surprised when local soldier Eli mistakes him for homeless, and brings him a cup of coffee and a biscuit. This gesture opens the door. Eli is lost, trying to make sense of a future without the Army after a combat injury ends his career.
Art gives them a new language and a path forward. But lost men can reach out, desperate to hang on to anyone close. Is what they find together real, and the kind of love that will last?
States of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the United States.
REVIEW:
I have been a fan of this series. A new book about each state written by different authors. This time it is Georgia’s turn.
Eli is a wounded soldier returning home after he can no longer serve in the military, the career that he thought he would have for his lifetime. Now he is in rehab with a grandmotherly counselor that doesn’t really get him. Ben is a long way from home. But home hasn’t been his since he came out back in Tel Aviv. Now he has been commissioned to do a mural on a building in Atlanta, Georgia. While sitting on “his bench” a young man brings him a coffee and biscuit and puts a dollar bill under David, his dog’s collar and leaves. He then realizes that the young man, who is also staying at the extended stay hotel he is, thinks he’s homeless. When they meet again he sets him straight and then proceeds to hit on him. Things happen fast and soon they both realize that Eli has a eye for photography. But what will happen when the mural is done?
This is a very short book and I realize that there is sometimes not time for too much development. The author focuses on the background of the art and builds the story around that. My problem is that I wanted less of the actual art and more of the connection and development of the two men. My other problem was the ending…I had to look twice to see if I had suddenly skipped over the last of the story but it just ended there and I was left hanging. I was finally getting a bit invested in the characters and then bam it’s done!
I’m afraid that this story was a miss for me. Not enough development and then I felt cheated when I started to feel a bit engaged.
RATING: 
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