Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: The Elevator Mechanic
SERIES: Workplace Encounters #1
AUTHOR: Serena Yates
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 116 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 21, 2015
BLURB:
Quiet elevator installer Joe Taylor craves more stability in his career, but not in his personal life. Casual sex suits him, and when he meets fitness center owner Bill Evans at a mall where they are both working, they agree on no-strings-attached weekend hookups. Both men have fought hard to escape their pasts and are afraid to commit, so the agreement works well for them—at first. But when the sex gets hotter by the weekend and a deeper connection forms, Joe and Bill wonder if a relationship is feasible, especially since Joe’s work makes it impossible for him to settle down. Joe must consider his changing priorities and decide if he can take a risk on something beyond the physical.
REVIEW:
I was in the mood for a quick, steamy read for my next Retro Review, as well as a story grounded more in reality than in the fantastic. This is a fast, readable story with some gorgeous love scenes, but I was left wanting more.
Years before I read this book, I read another book in Yates’ “Workplace Encounters” series, The Ship Engineer. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a huge fan, and didn’t have much interest in the rest of the books. But I’d been craving romances with blue-collar protagonists after reading stories about rock stars and secret agents for so long, so I decided to go back to this series. I certainly enjoyed this story more.
Joe, the titular elevator mechanic, is instantly smitten with Bill, a personal trainer who is overseeing the opening of his own gym. But Joe is shy and unwilling to take chances until he encounters Bill at a club and they have an explosive connection. They decide on a no-strings relationship, but of course, things get more intense as feelings become involved and Joe has an accident at work.
In terms of a blue-collar main character, this story totally delivers. Joe has the real fears of a middle-class worker—he craves stability and permanence in his career rather than taking risks, because without his job, he’d have nothing. So when he gets hurt and has to rely on Bill, we really feel his pain. There’s also just enough detail about Joe’s job to keep us interested. Yates obviously did her research!
Despite some scorching kinkiness in the love scene department, we never get a very clear picture of Joe or Bill as characters. Joe has rich backstory potential, but we never learn much about it, and Bill’s need for success and independence is deserving of more detail. They create heat in the bedroom when Joe gives up control to Bill, and their instant affection towards each other is super sweet, but it lacks the substance a great novella needs to be really interesting.
This story was first reviewed in 2015 by Amber, who rated it slightly lower than I did. She thought it was a little too predictable, which I totally agree with, but the chemistry between Joe and Bill edged my rating a little higher. At that time, this book was in its second run through Dreamspinner after being previously published through a defunct company, and it is still available through Dreamspinner today.
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