Reviewed by Taylin
TITLE: Years Of Silence: Three Friends. Two Lies. One Truth.
AUTHOR: J K Jones
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 371 Pages
RELEASE DATE: December 30, 2020
BLURB:
Silence.
Oppressive. Ominous. It can be deafening.
Billionaire Tycoon Zander Wright is no stranger to loneliness. It wraps around him like a warm blanket. He’s live in it for years—centuries even. He cannot recall anything else.
Until it’s obliterated by sound.
Ex-convict Vadim Oblonsky is back. Knowing Vadim is like dancing the space between heaven and hell. The ocean is an inch between ecstasy and misery. Like all things long since forgotten, young love always remains the most crippling of pain.
Along with Vadim comes death and decay, in the perfect form of Petyr Yahontov. A dangerous man, with a sweet dimpled grin that has connections to the Russian mafia.
With these friends, who needs enemies?
Yet, Zander can no longer keep his secrets at bay. Someone is trying to kill him. Someone wants him dead. Zander didn’t start this. He didn’t want any part of it.
But he will be damned if he doesn’t finish it.
Extremely Dark MM Romance, Psychological Thriller, Floral Horror, Body Horror, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to lovers, Magical Realism, Gay Literary Fiction.
REVIEW:
What happens when a billionaire adopts you? Zander was given everything, and his adoptive father expected a tough lapdog in return. Someone is also out to kill Zander, and the only man he trusts to keep him safe is about to be released from prison – Vadim – the love of Zander’s life. Not that Vadim knows that – all he sees is the man who put him behind bars.
If your thoughts after the above paragraph are WTF, then yayyyy – welcome to the world of psychological thrillers. Take note of the tags at the bottom of the blurb. The story is all that and more. So, if you are on the fence after reading the synopsis, and decide to go for it, this may be a marmite read. You’ll either be hooked on thrillers or go hell no. Regardless, this is a story that – once you start reading – you have to continue to the end, or the result will bug you for months.
Set in New York with references to Russia and uses of the language – Years of Silence is told in the third person from Zander and Vadim’s viewpoints. The copy I received for review said ‘Final Edits’. Whether this meant there were edits to be done or the final edited version, I’m not sure. However, I will give the manuscript the benefit of the doubt and say it was not the final version because I found quite a few grammatical errors. There is plenty of well-written imagery that gave me no way out of some scenes. There is violence, brutality, blood, and more, alongside the heartbreaking journey of the characters. No one is clean or deserves a halo, and it was refreshing to read a story with such flawed human beings. Some were simply bad. Others were victims of circumstance.
Zander is a billionaire defense attorney who can get anyone off the hook – guilty or not. He is the product of a callous orphanage system where most of its guests were more feral than organized. While there, he befriends Vadim and Petyr. One way or another, the three are separated, and as the blurb suggests, they find each other again, later in life.
The book is filled with snippets of clues that only make sense later, and not everyone has all their marbles, so some aspects are skewed – or are they? Kudos to the author, who does not hold back on the dark side of life, to the point where some scenes were tough to read and others that made me cry, giving credence to the psychological side of the story.
While reading the circumstances – who was like what, and why – changed my viewpoint of the people. When rape, prostitution, the mafia, murder, explosives, and soulfully ugly people form your life circle, a person is hard-pressed to be anything different. But try, they do.
I think one must have a passion for this genre of story and have the ability to compartmentalize – if you do, this will be a must-read. I picked it up due to the blurb, which gives some warnings, but, for me, not enough. I appreciate how cleverly constructed the story is, with twists and turns to the end, and I’m glad I finished it. But some brutal situations were too much for my relaxing reading tastes.
In the end, the question I had, was, did the end justify the means, and the answer will differ from person to person. Also, some aspects were left unanswered, and to my knowledge, there isn’t a follow-up
Due to the intricacies of the story arc, and that the nature of a psychological thriller is supposed to leave a person disturbed, which I was, I have given it four hearts, which is a recommended read. Like I said – marmite.
RATING: 
BUY LINK: