Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Come to Me
SERIES: Connections
AUTHOR: A.Y. Caluen
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 104 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2022
BLURB:
An age-gap M/M romance novella about making beautiful music during lockdown.
When all three of his roommates moved out, Davy Sun’s living situation was a mess. Then friends of a friend offered their pool house for the duration, and it was an offer too good to refuse.
The last thing Davy expected while he was living in some random rich person’s backyard was to meet the man of his dreams. But it turned out the rich guy was friendly with guitarist Barry Teller, who came over to give an open-air lesson.
The lesson turned into a picnic dinner, and then some playing and singing on the patio. Turned out Barry really liked Davy’s voice … and he wanted to hear it from up close.
Content alert: this story is set in the real world of 2020.
Adult situations, themes, and language; 30,500 words and a happy ending.
REVIEW:
This is a new-to-me author.
The Covid pandemic is wracking havoc on LA in the spring of 2020 and Davy Sun’s three fellow friends/roommates/drag queen performers have been scattered all around the states and even London. Now he’s about to be evicted and, with the pandemic full swing in June he’s up a creek without a paddle. Luckily Ro has connections and suddenly he’s living rent-free in the guest house (complete with a swimming pool!) of two wonderful people Ro set him up with. They are both connected to Hollywood and when Sasha has his friend/guitar teacher Barry Teller over for a session the two are instantly attracted to the other. But is it just forced proximity in the age of social distancing and hunkering in? Or is the real thing and just managed to come at the right time for both me?
I did like this story a lot. I liked that it was a pretty good description of what everyone who took the pandemic seriously lived through. This story took place over six months of the worst of the pandemic. It is set before vaccines were available and we were in basically lockdown. And it was pretty accurate according to what I lived through in Hawaii.
I did like both men and liked that there wasn’t a lot of angst or does he really like me? I mean, Davy is 35 and Barry was 46 so they were established in their careers and knew what they wanted. And I liked that they wanted each other and both wanted a serious relationship. Yes it moved a bit fast but what else was there to do but work from home and twiddle your fingers. They were both musicians and that bond strengthened and complimented the other.
What I wasn’t fond of was the style this was written in. Yes, it got my much needed HEA and felt like I got the whole story. But one paragraph would be one character talking and the next was the other. Half the time I had to re-check to kept up with who’s head I was inside of or who was speaking. Also, I feel the book would have been better served if it was broken up in chapters instead of just a title in the paragraph stating we had moved ahead in time. That all took me out of the story and was harder to keep up with.
Like I stated, I liked the story premise, thought that she did a great job of tying in the pandemic realistically and really liked all the characters. I just wasn’t fond of how the characters kept bouncing in and out of paragraphs so I was lost so much.
RATING: 
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