A Sticky Wicket in Bollywood by T.A. Chase and Devon Rhodes

Title: A Sticky Wicket iin Bollywood
Author: T.A. Chase and Devon Rhodes
Cover Artist: Posh Gosh
Publisher: Total E-Bound
Publisher Buy Link A Sticky Wicket in Bollywood
Amazon Buy Link: Sticky Wicket in Bollywood
Genre: Bollywood, contemporary
Length: 155 pages

A handsome Bollywood actor must choose between his career and a rugged cricket player from his past, who he’s fallen in love with…again.

Rajan Malik has the world of Bollywood in the palm of his hand—a beautiful girlfriend, starring roles, adoring fans… He should be happy, but behind the façade lies a man conflicted and exhausted by the pressure placed on him by his terminally ill mother, his agent and society. His life is not his own, and all he wants to do is escape.

Indian Premier League cricketer Ajay Singh can’t believe how bad his university roommate Rajan looks when he spots his picture in the paper. They had parted on bad terms. Still, he’s moved to offer Rajan his support by renewing their friendship.

But friendship was not all they shared back then. Though Ajay is out, Rajan isn’t willing to give up his carefully cultivated Bollywood image to be with him publicly. And with very little privacy, it won’t take long for someone to find out they are more than friends.

Their renewed secret affair is fraught with difficulties as they deal with the death of Rajan’s mother, the secret of Rajan’s till-now absent father, a jealous friend, the intrusive media and threatening notes from someone who seems to know all about their private lives…

It’s a bit of a sticky wicket they find themselves in. Will it be too late when they finally realise that they’ll both need to compromise, or they’ll stand to lose everything?

Review

After that blurb there just isn’t much I can put as a spoiler, so.…

I don’t know much about Bollywood, other than India has a thriving movie industry and that very often where a Western film would insert a love or sex scene, the actors break out into song and dance instead. So guarding the public image of the biggest stars in a way that made Rock Hudson’s marriage to Phyllis Gates look like a weak effort seemed right in character.

The bulk of the story takes place in India and amongst the wealthy who never get into documentaries, and the life looked very comfortable. The big inconvenience was dealing with traffic. I didn’t exactly feel transported into either that part of the world or the lives of the MC’s, but it kept me interested. The third person POV didn’t feel especially deep, which kept my involvement with the characters a little more superficial than engaged.

Rajan seems to have stumbled into stardom as a result of ferocious pushes from behind: his mother was a former Bollywood star who was certainly living vicariously though him. How a man whose heart isn’t in it can be bullied into the top tier of something he doesn’t want was a bit of a mystery, but saying “Yes, Maa” to anything she wanted was easier than saying no. Especially with her health for a guilt card. Rajan’s mother was the driving force behind most of the action, past and present. I wanted desperately for him to grow a set and tell her, or anyone, no. The only one Rajan could say no to for any reason was Ajay, which cost him some likeability. He's tired now, but he's also abdicated living his life to other people a long time ago.

Ajay, the top cricket player, was a national star in his own right, and openly gay, something Rajan’s mother had HUGE issues with, costing them the relationship when they were young. Ajay’s still dealing with how Rajan walked out of his life back in their university days, and now that he’s being offered what he missed so much from before, he’s right to be wary about how much commitment he’s being offered from a man who mostly exists as other people’s fantasies.

The secondary characters had quite a lot of life on page: Rajan’s mother certainly dominated the book, his costar Karishma has some spark to her, as does Ajay’s fellow cricketer Neel, all of whom pretty much overshadow Rajan for the strength of their opinions. A few deathbed secrets raised eyebrows—how could a person feels as they did and them behave as they do kept running through my mind.

I enjoyed the story as a look into another culture, but the romance didn’t jump off the page for me, mostly because of Rajan’s lack of spine, and some places where the exposition takes the place of action. Don’t tell me there were riots over a cricket game back when, show me the fans pushing on the sides of the car. The flatness of such details took away from what could have been a vibrant story, but it’s a pleasant afternoon’s read. The story is deeply discounted both at the publisher and at Amazon for a limited time, to 99 cents, so get a copy and let me know if you agree or disagree.  
3.5 marbles

Let It Snow by Devon Rhodes

Title: Let It Snow
Author: Devon Rhodes
Cover Artist: Paul Richmond
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: contemporary holiday
Length: 44 pages

Since he’s housesitting a gorgeous inn over the holidays, Garrett invites his single friends to help keep Christmas merry. Then the snow hits and his friends can’t make it up as planned. Alone on Christmas Eve, Garrett makes a private Christmas wish for Ethan to see him as more than a best friend and a willing sub to spank. When the snow stops, will Garrett’s hopeful wishes come true?


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Normally I'd shy off at "sub to spank" because I don't care all that much for BDSM, but I think I must have hiccupped on that phrase and missed it, and in this case, that's a very good thing. Enlarging my horizons by accident, you could say.

Garrett's friends have promised to join him at the ski-resort inn he's babysitting—they'll have the place to themselves, but not until later in the holidays. Alone in an inn full of sturdy four-poster beds and wishing he wasn't, Garrett gives us the back story on his and Ethan's relationship as his fantasies while playing with himself and a toy. This was nicely done and very hot, and a good thing Garrett's physical needs weren't left as unfulfilled as his emotional needs. He and Ethan have a "friendship with scenes" but Garrett wishes they were really lovers.


He wakes up Christmas morning to find his friends have fought their way into the mountains to be with him. Chris and Will's personalities are deftly drawn in a handful of sentences; they feel very well rounded in a small bit of page time. They have their own problems, which don't overshadow Garrett and Ethan's, but do throw them into sharp relief and spur a resolution at the same time. It comes to a head here:

Chris remained motionless for a moment, accepting the comfort as the focal point of the four-way hug, then lifted his head. “You know, this is pretty touchy-feely considering only one of us is gay.”

And then all the cats come out of their bags in some well-paced revelations.

The story is short and really consists of two sex scenes and conversation, but so much unfolds within it that I found it highly enjoyable. Devon Rhodes did some really nice characterization and relationships; the friendship between all four men was palpable and important to the storyline, so it wasn't just two onlookers cheering the main couple along.

The really implausible element is why the owners of the inn would abandon their money-maker during the peak of the high season, but the characters do make very good use of the place.

The domination elements were very mild, which your light-weight reviewer appreciates, but felt honest and real. The second sex scene, where Ethan brings Garrett's dreams to fruition, lapses into the "only anal sex is real sex" fallacy, but in more than one way it does show how their relationship is changing and deepening. There's also a nice streak of humor to keep them from going totally mushy at one another.

The Christmas elements are very subdued, serving more to point out the gaps in the relationships that need filling, and the story would be equally pleasing to read out of the holidays. I closed the file with a big case of the warm fuzzies. 4.25 marbles