Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: From Brussels, With Love
SERIES: World of Love #30
AUTHOR: Emy Calirel
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 156 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 18, 2019
BLURB:
Dispirited after a recent breakup, Irish project manager Trevor is guilted into a trip to Brussels with his best friend. A chance meeting with cute and funny tour guide Jerome turns into a weekend of sex and friendship. Forgetting his phone at Jerome’s apartment shifts their fling into a long-distance relationship held together by postcards, texts, and stolen weekends. But distance isn’t the only thing keeping them apart—Trevor is a workaholic who values his success, while artistic Jerome is carefree but insecure.
Starting a life together means facing major challenges, but the loving words they’ve shared build a bridge across the sea—one that might let them meet in the middle.
World of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the globe.
REVIEW:
This was a pretty good story. There were some bumps in the roads, as long distance can make things difficult, but when you come from different cultures and different lifestyles, it can make it even harder. They had some tough things to deal with but to make things work, they had to do it or walk away.
Trevor’s work always seems to come first. And now it really does since his breakup with his ex. Having to hide being gay at work makes it even harder now, since his ex works there and his new fling. It’s all a big mess, and in order to get him out of his funk, his best friend Hannah, makes him take a short vacation to Brussels with her while she works. He didn’t want to and was really not happy about it, but it ended up causing him to take a tour where he met a guide that made things a lot more interesting. Thinking it would just be a weekend fling, they had a great time. But when Trevor left his phone, Jerome left his number in it, in hopes that maybe they could be friends. But it ended up starting to become more. As Trevor spent as much free time as he could with Jerome, things were getting tough. They really didn’t know each other, it was awkward with each others friends, very bad with Trevor’s parents, and Trevor’s job and ex seemed to take too much time. Plus, Jerome was unhappy in his plans with life as well. So it was a huge mess. And the end came at a misunderstanding when things got too scary for everyone and it got them smacked in the face. And there may be no coming back from it.
Long distance relationships have a hard time working. I admire people who can make them work. I don’t see how it’s possible to be honest. You never learn much about each other, someone is always gone. There’s just so much that can go wrong. And in this case, that’s what happened. They honestly didn’t know each other well enough to be ready for something serious and when things got to the point of love, they were encroaching on each other’s territories, so to speak and it left things bad. Real bad. And a lot could have been fixed with better communication. Eventually, they did talk and it helped, but they had to make some compromises and work a lot out. And coming from bad exes just made things that much harder to trust.
It’s not a bad story, but it’s filled with some angst. It’s hard being worlds apart, or so it seems. Hell, sometimes it’s just hard being in the same room. But there has to be communication, trust and a whole lot more to make it work.
RATING: 
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