Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Digging Deep
SERIES: Digging Deep #1
AUTHOR: Jay Hogan
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 342 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 6, 2019
BLURB:
Drake Park has a complicated life. As a gay male midwife, he’s used to raising eyebrows. Add Crohn’s disease and things get interesting—or not, considering the sad state of his love life. Experience has taught Drake that most men are fair-weather sailors when it comes to handling his condition—gone for dust when things get rough. Staying healthy is a full-time job without adding in any heartbreak, so a little loneliness is a small price to pay. If he says it often enough he might even believe it. One thing for sure, the cop who arrested him isn’t about to change that.
Caleb Ashton does not have a complicated life. A senior detective with the Whangarei Police Department, he likes his job and is good at it. He works hard and plays hard, happy to enjoy as many men as he can while he’s still young enough—or at least he was. These days he feels adrift for the first time in his life, and the only thing sparking his interest—a certain prickly young midwife.
But can Drake find enough faith to risk opening his heart again? And does Caleb have what it takes to cope with the challenges Drake’s condition presents?
REVIEW:
I tell you, I am impressed as hell with this book. Crohn’s disease is not something you read about often in a book, because heaven forbid, it’s not a pretty picture. It’s not all sunshine and roses. Quite often it hell on Earth. If you don’t know anything about Crohn’s, this book gives you a good idea, but do your research. It’s not an easy thing to live with. And being gay, especially one who loves to bottom, yeah, not a pretty picture.
Drake was used to his life. It wasn’t an easy one having to deal with Crohn’s, constantly having to be near a bathroom in case something happened. But so far he was doing ok. Until a protest one morning. It kicked in and he raced to a bathroom where he shouldn’t have been. And was arrested for trespassing. Even after he explained everything. Needless to say, after having another episode in the police station, he hated the cop who arrested him, Caleb. But something about Drake got to Caleb and he tried and tried to apologize. Only Drake kept turning him down. They finally came to an understanding, but life started kicking in and things got rough. Caleb had no clue what Drake was really dealing with as much as he tried to get it and Drake was to busy pushing Caleb away for fear of being hurt again. But it took Caleb being hurt on the job for Drake to get a clue and it was time to make it right. Especially when he got to speak with a client who he needed as well. But Caleb wants to move slow now and Drake is afraid it might mean something else. So he has to go fight or lose the one good thing he really ever had.
I can not say enough how impressed I am with this story. It’s something more people should actually be talking about. But because it’s not a pretty romantic topic, it gets passed over. And the realness of what these guys were going through. Even though Drake has the disease and it was bad, it didn’t just affect him. It affected Caleb too, as his lover and partner. It affects everyone around you. Work is harder, doing recreational things are often impossible and then there’s the sex.
But there were no punches pulled in this book. It showed all the ugly. The sick, the shame, the humiliation, the fights, everything. And that’s how it should be. Life is not always perfect. Far from it. I know we all read a lot to escape or get that fantasy, but sometimes you just need that in your face book that leaves you breathless from being so real and it’s perfect.
RATING: 
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