Reviewed by Cindy

TITLE: Aftermath

SERIES: Ever After Book 3

AUTHOR: Tanya Chris

PUBLISHER: Chris Publishing

LENGTH: 332 Pages

RELEASE DATE: June 27, 2019

BLURB:

Once upon a time, Casey flirted with a pretty boy at a bar, and that changed everything. Recently released from jail, he’s starting to rebuild without the family who raised him to hate himself. He’s got a new job, a room at his aunt’s, and community service hours at an LGBTQIA community center. But his biggest challenge is figuring out how to live as the one thing his father and brother drilled into him he could never be: a gay man.

Once upon a time, Brooks was a confident Dom with a particular taste for bigger men. But since his run-in with a dangerous homophobe, he’s lost his touch. Big, buff guys are hot but scary, and hurting people isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

Until he meets Casey, the big guy with the problematic past. Casey’s willing to do anything, but does his submission stem from healthy kink or from an unhealthy need to be punished? And is Brooks doling out release or revenge? Two people who share a past as violent as theirs could never fall in love. Unless, somewhere in the aftermath, there’s forgiveness.

REVIEW:

This is the third book in this series and it does take an interesting turn.

Casey is a young man who feel like the world has been unfair to him. After being released from jail. he goes looking for something that will help him make sense of his life. He might start looking in the wrong place.

Brooks is angry. And incident in his past has taken his confidence and his dominance. When Casey stumbles into his life for the second time, he feels compelled to see if the young man can help return what he took.

I’m a big fan of this genre and while I loved the other two books in the series, this one did give me a little more to think about than they did.

While still extremely well written and definitely a page turner, I found myself pausing a few times while reading this. I found myself a little concerned about the relationship between Brooks and Casey as it doesn’t really seem healthy for the first two thirds of the book. Casey’s biggest issue is taking responsibility for the right things and Brooks? He starts out looking for something that really isn’t Casey’s to give. It’s really hard to voice my concerns without giving away too much, but let’s just say that I wasn’t entirely sure that I was always rooting for them to end up together.

What I did really enjoy was Casey’s journey throughout the story. He grows so much and learns what’s really important along the way. Taking proper responsibility for the events that led him to the place the book starts at is the whole point of this story and the author does a really great job getting across this part of Casey’s story.

I wasn’t sure I always liked Brooks but I did understand where he was coming from. He’s deeply flawed and lacks self-awareness a lot but once he finds himself again, he becomes a person I can cheer for.

The book is extremely well written and the author confronts a lot of the issues that BDSM stories tend to face from people who are outside of the community. A lack of understanding as to why someone is interested in the power exchange that comes with the lifestyle and the prejudice that comes from people who are afraid of what they don’t understand.

I loved this book in the end even though I wasn’t always sure that I liked it and if an author’s job is to make us think a little more then Tanya Chris has certainly achieved that in this story.

RATING:

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