Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: White Oak/ Black Mahogany
SERIES: Heartwood #1
AUTHOR: Emily Harrington
PUBLISHER: Changeling Press
LENGTH: 498 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2020
BLURB:
Can love be shield, sword, and healing balm for this troubled couple?
White Oak: When Mike, a sheltered nineteen year old, is hired to assist a blind high school senior, he isn’t prepared for his attraction to Aidan, or the residual fear caused by being back at the high school. The man who tormented Mike and made him ashamed of being himself will stop at nothing, including murder, to ensure Mike’s silence.
Black Mahogany: When the man who molested Aidan’s lover escapes a pedophile charge, Aidan will stop at nothing to keep Mike safe. But Mike can’t imagine leaving the town he’s lived in all his life. If they can’t find a way through this impasse, their fledgling relationship will die before it can grow deep enough roots.
REVIEW:
I found that this book wasn’t easy to read. The style of writing was out-of-the-ordinary and takes some getting used to. There is a lot of italicized inner dialogue and it chopped the story up into small pieces.
On the upside, we are able to get into the characters’ heads upfront and immediately as things happen. There is no looking back on what’s happening right now, just the mediate impressions. The choppiness of the writing is, I believe, balanced out by opportunity of hearing the characters as we go along. There is some passive voice going on and occasionally it’s tricky to keep the POV straight.
On the down side, it’s impossible to ignore how much the extensive inner dialogue, from both character, chops up the story making it clumsy and muddled. My opinion is that the positives far outweigh the negative but the style issue can’t be ignored.
The other thing I didn’t like was the way characters, especially the adults, occasionally slip into preaching and there are times when the dialogue sounds more as if the characters were speaking lines or reading from a book as the cadence of the dialogue simply wasn’t natural. These occasions were, thankfully, few.
The characters are very vivid and well-drawn. The entire Kelly family is highly entertaining. Both Aiden and Mike had difficult paths to tread. Both had to face the aftermath of serious violence and abuse, and both handle it in different ways, neither of them are good. As they struggle to get past incidents in their past, they struggle to come to terms with their growing relationship and other hurdles, some arising from the past and some from the present and future.
I do love Aiden’s character. In the beginning, I found him cold and annoying, but the more we got inside his head, the more I understood and liked him. He was, in many ways, wise beyond his years, and in others vulnerable and childlike. Mike is more straightforward, but while Aiden is navigating life, Mike is blundering through it.
The story arc ends in a way that is satisfying but incomplete, which is as it should be with a sequel on its way very soon. They get their happy for now, and at least from here on they have each other — as long as they learn how to communicate and cut out all the misunderstandings, although it’s highly unlikely because that’s just not the way humans work.
In the end, I really enjoyed this book. It was something new. All of the characters were flawed, but that made them more real and interesting. There were times when I was angry, times when I was frustrated, and times when I laughed out loud. It’s a weighty book with a lot of meat — story and characters. I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for something spicy but with a little more depth.
RATING: 
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