Author: Devyn Morgan
Purchase at Amazon
Cover Artist: UK
Genre: contemporary
Length: 146 pages
Formats MOBI, print
Dumped by his movie star boyfriend, writer Trevor Cunningham trades the glitz, glamour and pricey house in Hollywood for a quaint turn-of-the-century bungalow in Copper Bluff, Montana. This infuriated author’s going to write a gruesome death for his ex, a big change from his best-selling gay romances. Now, instead of fighting traffic on Melrose Avenue, Trevor's trying to chop firewood with his puggle Sabrina by his side.
Don Harper’s lived his whole life in this faded boom town. Need a house weatherproofed? Need a fence built? Have an old mine shaft open up? Call Don Harper! Don’s never been sure there are other men who want what he wants, but he spies books on Trevor’s shelves, books with men loving men.
The mutual attraction is there from the get-go, but how is a mountain man supposed to fit into a Hollywood kind of life? And how can Trevor realize he’s worth Don’s masculine attentions?
They’ll both find out when winter turns to spring. Because spring is shaft season.
A standalone novella with a first time relationship, a lovable designer dog, and an HEA.
OMG, I loved this. Definitely opposites attract, and they don’t want to attract. And doggies. I didn’t know I was a sucker for dogs in romances but I am. (Also for cats, but that was an established fact.)
Trevor’s downsized his expenses so he can spend the time to write his awful ex into a story and KILL HIM. Maybe that will get him out of Trevor’s head, where he’s built a whole nest of bad boyfriend lies about Trevor being old and undesirable and generally not cool enough for a movie star. All for being late thirties and liking to cook at home instead of going out to eat and being responsible enough to feed and walk the dog. We get to see Antony being the nasty man we’re all glad isn’t Trevor’s lover any more. What a piece of work he is, but you can see how he could use just enough truth to weave into a lie and make Trevor believe it. Which is sad. Even if Trevor makes a really good point about an actor getting along with the screenwriter.
And there’s Don. Sweet and hardworking, and gay in a place where he’s never knowingly met another man who likes men. I wanted to scream at Don’s father, but when it’s small town Montana, of 20 years ago, it would be screaming at him for being like everyone else, only freer to be mean to his son. So when Don meets up with Trevor for doing odd jobs on a hundred year old house in this faded mining town, which, hah, I think I recognize, that’s a pretty distinctive lake. Don meets up with Trevor’s bookshelf first. Which was supercute, running back and forth to raid the books.
And then he has questions, and one things leads to another, and here’s a bit of truth for Antony to twist—there aren’t a lot of other choices for partners. And Trevor’s not a very secure guy. Add in small town vs Hollywood glitz, and they've got a lot to contend with.
And the hell of it is, they’re really good for each other. And they’ll figure it out, eventually. Not before making us readers sniffle and yell and worry, and then be happy. And there’s doggies. Sabrina the puggle and Bandit the mutt (Don says something about the dogs that made me snort Coke out my nose!)
So, charming story and all is happy, I would have liked to read more about Don’s first encounters with a few more aspects of gay sex, but I think for him that’s not the important thing, he just needs to be able to touch Trevor. With or without a dog bouncing on the bed.
Devyn Morgan's stuff can be hit or miss for me but this one hits it out of the park. 4.75 marbles
Oh, remember Devyn did an excerpt to go with a picture that was perfect to be Don? It's here.
