Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: His Instant Family
SERIES: Stories Of Us #2
AUTHOR: Rheland Richmond
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 299 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 4, 2018
BLURB:
Shy and awkward Teo Wright, a brilliant young author, has met the man of his dreams in much older Michael, a widower, and father of three. The man has fired up his fantasies and refuses to let go. Discovering they are both single sets them on the road to forever.
“I want to wake up to this every morning.”
Dr. Michael Ashworth has been focused on his work for too many years and although now he is one of the best doctors in his field, it has been to the detriment of his family. But when Teo comes into his life, Michael knows the young man is his future. Teo has made him feel alive and whole again. However, Michael’s in-laws are not thrilled to find their ‘straight’ son-in-law, is in fact bisexual.
Dating a man is not the only issue threatening the life he and Teo are building together. Michael’s teenage son is also not a fan of his father having a boyfriend that is so much younger.
A rebellious teenager and bigoted relatives are hurdles Michael and Teo must overcome before they can find their forever, but nothing good ever comes easy… especially when there are kids to consider.
REVIEW:
Still dealing with the death of his wife, Michael Ashworth can’t even fathom dating again. That is until Teo Wright walks into his life. Caught off guard by the man — what with him being a man, let alone one married to his patient — Michael doesn’t know what to do. Other than the obvious: get over him stat.
Luckily by the second time the two meet, Michael is relieved to find out that Teo was with his sister, not anyone of the less-platonic variety. That doesn’t mean Michael knows how to go about dating him, but at least all ethical concerns are out of the way. But trying to mix their two lives might be harder than originally thought, especially when Michael’s son takes exception to Teo’s presence in their lives.
I didn’t hate this story. When I was reading it, there was no anger. Just mild disappointment. For every good decision made, there seemed to be three that were fumbled. I liked how easy Michael handled the realization that he was bisexual (and came right out and declared that this was absolutely not a gay-for-you situation). I liked the easy acceptance of non-binary relationships. And there were even times where the conversations flowed easily enough for me to get caught up in them. However…
When it comes right down to it, my issues with this story mostly have to do with the pacing. It is an interesting story that is being dragged down by the constant use of Telling over Showing. The readers are given way too much information just by the characters narrating their backstory, stating their emotions, or explaining what/why they are doing certain things. We are also told things repeatedly — sometimes barely one chapter after we originally learn it. All of this creates a great deal of unneeded drag on the pacing of the story.
It takes them nearly the first half of the story to even get to their first date. Which I wouldn’t have minded if something else interesting was going on. The character building for the two main characters was done in such a matter of fact way that it wasn’t all that compelling; but it was even worse for the secondary characters. Michael’s kids have it the worst. I found his eldest daughter to be the most realistic, but she doesn’t feature much. His son and youngest daughter feel like plot devices more than humans.
And while I know it is such a small thing, there is a constantly repeated grammar error in this book, and it drove me crazy every time I saw it. About half the time the author forgot to use a comma when directly addressing someone in dialogue. It sounds absolutely ridiculous to complain about this, I know, but I had a writing professor who threatened to fail anyone in our class who fucked this up, so I am now NEVER able to skim over it when I’m reading. It nagged at my brain the whole time I was reading this book. Had my professor been a bit less crazy — or on fewer drugs — this might not be an issue for me. But, alas, it totally is.
Like I said before, I didn’t hate this story. It just had some major issues in pacing that made it hard to read at times. I came away feeling like I read a decent story, buried under about 50 pages of filler.
RATING: 
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