Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Beyond the Norm
AUTHOR: Shawn Lane
PUBLISHER: JMS Books
LENGTH: 89 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 11, 2020, 2nd edition
BLURB:
Dave Johnson is closing up his bar in the early hours of the morning when he rescues a young Goth who identifies himself only as Kyle. When Dave realizes Kyle has nowhere to go, he offers to let the young man stay at his place.
Kyle is sexy and surrounded by mystery, and rather tight-lipped about it all. But he soon worms his way into Dave’s life and heart. Yet dark secrets have a way of coming out at the most inopportune times, and Kyle’s past life may catch up to the men sooner than either of them expected.
REVIEW:
Dave is a fairly young guy. He’s pretty much on his own – with a distant brother and sister that he hasn’t seen for a while. He owns a bar in a strip center. On a slow night, he is leaving the bar when he hears a scuffle – and he grabs a tire iron out of his truck to go investigate. What he finds are two thugs beating on a guy. He chases off the attackers and discovers a fairly young goth kid unconscious. He comes to and refuses medical help, so Dave takes him home since he has a spare room and he’s worried about the kid.
Kyle has been getting the crap kicked out of him. But apparently it’s not the first time and far from the worst, so he insists he will be OK. He’s bloodied and bruised, but amazingly doesn’t seem to be hurt badly. He agrees to stay at Dave’s at least for the night n the spare room. Dave gives him some spare clothes so he can wash Kyle’s messed up ones. Kyle seems grateful. He also seems a little bit interested in Dave, but Dave doesn’t want to return the interested because he thinks he’s too old for Kyle – even though he is “19 and a half.”
Dave feels protective of Kyle and so he asks him to stay. Kyle is obviously hiding from someone or running from something. But he doesn’t want to share with Dave. So Dave gives him his space and lets him hang out at the bar. Fairly quickly though, they give in to their attraction and sleep together. When Kyle suspects that it’s time to move on to protect Dave, things get dicey. But Dave doesn’t want to let go – so they have to figure out of there is a way to move forward. Together.
Well I wish I could have liked this more. I’m a fan of this author and have read loads of her books over the years. But for some reason, I just didn’t connect with either character in this one. Dave comes across as a “get off my lawn” gruff old guy – but he’s only 27. Kyle obviously has issues, but Dave seems OK to just let him stay at his house. It’s plain that Kyle is hiding from someone – possibly dangerous. But Dave is content to just wait Kyle out apparently. I just didn’t believe the “connection” between them beyond sex. None of this rang true to me. I just had trouble suspending reality enough to get into the story. As usual, YMMV 🙂
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
JMS Books