Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Inhale
AUTHOR: D.P. Denman
PUBLISHER: North Shore Press
LENGTH: 305 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 20, 2023
BLURB:
What can you do when love takes you by surprise? Just breathe.
Cole Rinne is a model with an impossible problem. An invasion of his privacy ends up in the hands of a blackmailer, and the details could go public any day. His only hope is to ditch the spotlight and hide in the shadows. Then he meets someone with a solution.
Gage Marx is a PI who specializes in impossible problems. He’s used to solving the unsolvable. The only thing he’s ever declared a lost cause is himself.
From the start, Cole’s case holds more surprises than Gage expects. The most shocking is that for the first time in over two years, Gage’s broken heart is showing signs of life.
Their plan to wade slowly into love comes apart when an unexpected opportunity threatens to turn it all into a long-distance relationship. Will occasional reunions be enough to keep them together, or will their separate careers tear them apart?
cw: grief
– damaged lead finds love
– professional model
– learning to love again
– private investigator stories
– hurt/comfort
REVIEW:
Gage Marx is a PI. He’s been through a lot and he’s busy, but he needs to be to keep himself together. He’s hired by Jesse Rinne to find her brother Cole, an aspiring model, who has stopped communicating and she’s very worried. She’s reported him missing, but as an adult, the police can’t really do much. Gage has contacts though and he manages to find Cole fairly easily and let him know his family is worried. Jesse is thrilled that Gage has found Cole, but there is something going on. So Cole wants to hire Gage himself to help him with the mess he’s in. It’s a pretty serious invasion of privacy and it could torpedo the career Cole has been trying so hard to build.
Gage agrees to help Cole and engages the assistance of a really good lawyer he’s friendly with. There are a lot of layers to the perpetrator that are going to take some time to work through. Cole is kind of falling apart from the stress though and the only person he trusts at all is Gage. Also he finds Gage extremely attractive. He ends up calling Gage when he needs someone to talk to and Gage obliges. He’s not really ready to look at all the reasons why he is going this for a client, but it becomes clear that there is something between them. Gage has felt nothing for two years and he’s rather shocked that it seems like he might be having feelings and an attraction again. His grief at the loss of his partner is not something he will just “get over” and in fact he’s resigned to the notion that it will always be with him.
When Gage shares with Cole what has happened in his past, Cole is very empathetic. He’s will to take things at Gage’s speed. The one thing he does insist on though is that Gage be honest with him about what is going on with him. Turns out this is a very good rule. And it goes both ways.
When Cole gets an opportunity to go to New York and maybe get his big break, of course Gage is happy for him. And also worried about what he’ll do with himself with Cole on the other side of the country. He’s gotten into a better routine – not working all hours of the day and night. Eating better with Cole’s encouragement. Getting actual sleep. He’s definitely worried that he will slip back into old patterns. He’s also busier than ever since he’s had some pretty high profile cases go a bit viral. Even though he’s hired an assistant, he’s still crazy busy.
Gage and Cole are trying to work with the separation by facetiming and texting, but it’s just not the same. Intermittent visits are painful at their separation again. They are struggling to try to figure out how to make things work because they really do love each other 🙂
I thought this was an extremely well-written story. The one thing I would say is that if suicide and the aftermath are triggers for you, you might want to consider that before reading this book. That being said, the author did a great job of conveying something that most of us know and that is that grief has it’s own timeline. Feelings of guilt at moving on and particularly guilt and self-blame for the loved ones of those who end their own lives is I think particularly well done here. I cannot even imagine how difficult that must be. Gage has gotten to a place where he’s managed to fill his time so that he doesn’t dwell, but he’s still got a lot of unresolved feelings. he still suffers from nightmares and PTSD from the event in this past that has forever changed him. Cole has his own issues with his anxiety about being blackmailed and the consequences ruining his career. He feels like he can trust Gage though and he wants to pursue something with him despite Gage seeming to be holding back for some reason. It takes time for Gage to be able to share his past and the grief that weights him down. When he does, Cole takes him at his word. He wants to ensure that Gage takes care of himself and he’s determined to be the one to help him with that. Cole is trying to make a success of his career, but the separation is making him lonely and depressed and this of course worries Gage as well. They both want to make things work though and just need to find a way to be able to do that.
This book just hit the spot for me after the previous murder and mayhem book I read. The pace was slower as befit these two characters and their story. I believed that they were working towards something that neither of them really saw coming. The communication and honesty that this relationship exhibited I though was really exemplary and showed how these along with love and empathy made for a stronger relationship. Very well done. Recommended for fans of second chance stories and learning to live with grief while finding love again.
RATING: 
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