Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Square One
AUTHOR: L.A. Witt
NARRATOR: Michael Ferraiuolo
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 11 hours and 8 minutes
RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
BLURB:
Holden Russell let his job consume his life for too long, and it took his wife leaving for him to realize it’s time for a change. His marriage is over, but he’s determined to do right by his kids, starting with fewer hours at work and more with them. Except it’s no longer the kids competing with his job for his attention. It’s Holden competing for their attention…with their new live-in nanny. Their very hot male live-in nanny.
Porter Blake never saw himself becoming a nanny, but okay. After burnout and PTSD drove him from his job as a paramedic, he’s desperate for something new, and it turns out the nanny gig isn’t so bad. The pay is decent, the stress is manageable, the kids are great, and their mom is cool. It’s the ex-husband he’s not so sure about.
The situation is awkward enough when Porter and Holden are butting heads. When they find some common ground and their mutual attraction becomes too much to ignore, things are bound to get complicated.
And unless they want Porter to lose his job, they’re going to have to fly under the ex-wife’s radar. Except secrets like this have a way of coming out….
REVIEW:
Holden has recently moved to Seattle with his oldest son. Zach has a job, but he’s still living with his dad. They have an apartment that is close to Holden’s ex-wife Tiffany and their three shared young children as well as a Tiffany’s daughter from her first marriage. Holden really wants a relationship with his kids which is why he’s taken this job and moved from Arizona to be near them. Tiffany has hired a live-in person to care for the kids while she’s working. What Holden doesn’t expect is that the person is a male and good-looking and gay to boot. Holden is an out bisexual man ans he is very much attracted to Holden, but also a bit guarded – thinking that Porter is trying to take his place as a father figure.
Porter has left his past as an EMT to nanny – the house are better along with the living arrangements and the lack of danger 🙂 He loves the kids, is great at the job and he sees Holden as a threat to his position. They have some initial rough patches, but they get over them fairly easily with direct and honest communication. What they have a more difficult time with is the fact that they have an attraction that doesn’t want to be denied.
Tiffany can sense that Holden and Porter have an attraction and she informs both of them that they can’t be together. She’s worked hard to establish security of the kids with a stable male presence and she doesn’t want to jeopardize that. They try to respect her wishes, but it gets harder and harder. And then they just can’t. But the lying and covering up get more and more difficult until there is no hiding it and there are issues with the kids that cause Porter and Holden to break apart. It seems though that both are miserable and that’s causing issues too – so how can they resolve this?
I really liked this story a lot! There are lots of things going on in this family – with 5 children from three different parent groups, custodial parents, non-custodial parents and the manny. Holden and Tiffany are working through a relationship that seems to be on much better footing when Holden is taking a more active role with his three youngest children. What I thought was really great in this story is that they issues with the kids were not glossed over and that everyone had the best interests of the children at heart. Even during the times that Tiffany was not in favor of Holden and Porter having a relationship, she was not doing it out of a vindictive or vengeful or spiteful desire. She really was concerned for her kids. I appreciated that she was not a caricature, but a concerned mother who wanted stability and support for all her kids. I also cheered when she stood up for her daughter in the face of bigotry and potentially damaging influences. Porter and Holden are two really special guys who deserve to be happy and thankfully, everyone behaves like an adult and does the right thing. Recommended particularly as an example of how relationships can be handled in the face of moving on from marriage to co-parenting in a positive way. Also Michael Ferraiuolo is spectacular at narrating as usual. He’s just an autobuy for me 😀
RATING: 
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