Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Irresistible
AUTHOR: Andrew J. Peters
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 272 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 13, 2018
BLURB:
Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss is an Ivy League-educated trust-funder who Gotham Magazine named the most eligible gay bachelor in New York City. He lives for finding his soulmate, but after walking in on his boyfriend of three transcendent months soaping up in the shower with an older female publicist, he’s on a steady diet of scotch, benzodiazepines, and compulsive yoga. Men are completely off the menu.
Callisthenes Panagopoulos has a problem most guys dream of. With the body and face of a European soccer heartthrob, the vigorous blond hair of a Mormon missionary, and a smile that makes traffic cops stuff their ticket books back in their utility belts, he’s irresistible to everyone. But being a constant guy-magnet comes with its discontents, like an ex-boyfriend who tried to drive his Smart car through Cal’s front door. It makes him wonder if he’s been cursed when it comes to love.
When Brendan and Cal meet, the attraction is meteoric, and they go from date to mates at the speed of time-lapse photography. But to stay together, they’ll have to overcome Cal’s jealous BFF, Romanian mobsters, hermit widowers, and a dictatorship on the brink of revolution during a dream wedding in the Greek isles that becomes a madcap odyssey.
A gay romantic comedy of errors based on Chariton’s Callirhoe, the world’s oldest extant romance novel.
REVIEW:
This book was absolutely over the top ridiculous and I’m pretty sure I’ve sprained my eyeballs from rolling them so hard. That being said, it’s meant to be ridiculous and over the top, so yay to the author for accomplishing what he set out to achieve. This is an old school harlequin-esque drama of epic proportions as our two hapless heroes face innumerable trials and tribulations as they attempt to make their way down the aisle to their happily-ever-after.
I loved how the author created both MCs. Brendan was not the usual New York billionaire businessman I was expecting. There is really nothing alpha about this guy. He’s uncertain, dramatic, and cries at the drop of a hat. And I know that some readers loathe characters who get teary constantly, but trust me, it suits the outlandish storyline perfectly! But it was Cal who was easily my favourite. Cal is everybody’s favourite! Male, female, straight, gay, nine or ninety – everybody falls in love with Callisthenes Panagopoulos. He’s like a Disney princess with a trail of devoted animals trailing her, but in Cal’s case he has a trail of obsessed stalkers. The book also includes the most random cast of secondary characters ever assembled including mob bosses, would-be actors, elderly fishermen, resistance fighters and a homicidal king who has a fetish for playing British schoolboys.
Plot wise, I liked the way the author wrote alternating chapters from Cal and Brendan’s points of view. I really enjoyed knowing what each was doing, as Cal was captured by one person after another and his heartbroken fiancé Brendan chased him through the Greek Isles. While all of the situations were hilarious, my only criticism is that it seemed to drag in a few places. But that could just be a personal thing that other readers won’t experience.
So I’m recommending this book as an entertaining read, but at the same time, this definitely won’t be for every reader. Actually, it might not even be for most readers. Maybe download a sample and make sure you go into it knowing it’s going to be outrageously over the top. Then hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.
RATING: 
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