...Bookfanatic

After being seriously hurt in an accident Raven's career in the adult film industry comes to an unexpected and abrupt end.  Struggling with his battered self-esteem, no job and no interest in sex. Raven accepts an offer to attend a high school reunion with an acquaintance of his former employer as their escort, companion, date whatever title you want to give it but Raven's very clear that there are no sexual favors involved. Sadly his client turns out to be a jerk, cutting the evening short Raven returns to his room only to discover that the air-conditioner in his room has broken down. This turns out to be the highlight of his day when Caleb the HVAC person contracted to service the hotel's system shows up at his door.

Raven's libido definitely sits up and takes notice at the sight of the sexy service man and Caleb isn't immune to the dark haired beauty who opens the door when he makes his service call. Problem is awakened libido or not Raven's got issues to get past before he's ready for a relationship that involves getting physical and Caleb needs to find his way out of the closet he's locked himself in.

However, whatever the issues may be on both sides them men are definitely attracted and spending time with each other and getting to know each other is not something that either of them truly has an aversion to.

Raven's life has been kind of sucky. He got dealt a bad hand when it came to parents. Mom was less than interested in being a decent mother and dad was less than present. So when he came out to his mom at the age of 18 it also meant coming home to his belongings on the front porch and changed locks on the front door. Raven picked up his things and did what he had to in order to make his way in the world. He's not ashamed of his time as a porn star but that doesn't mean he's taking out any billboards for it either. He wants to tell Caleb but not until they've had a bit of time together to cement their relationship.

Caleb just needs to man-up and find his way out of the closet. He's convinced himself that he can never be gay because his momma wants grandchildren and it's his duty to provided them and the family would never accept him being gay never mind that they accept his cousin Jamie who is unrepentantly gay and still part of the family and loved.

Mostly I really liked this story. I liked Raven and thought he was pretty damned courageous person. I loved how kind and caring Caleb was towards him and how he treated Raven. Taking him on dates and not pushing him for more than he was willing to give. I loved that Caleb enjoyed being able to just curl up with Raven and kiss and cuddle. It was so sweet and romantic and then it fell apart for somewhere around 85 - 90% (sorry, I listened to the audio here to this is a guesstimate).

Anyways, this is towards the end and the point at which Caleb finally finds out about Raven's career in adult films. Caleb's reaction blew me out of the water. I went from "I adore you, Caleb" to "Caleb you are a freakin' bag of dicks".  

David Ross was the narrator for this audiobook and ironically I've only listened to one other audio book by this narrator and I have to confess it did not go well for me, so this is where the irony comes in because I enjoyed Mr. Ross's narration of this story. His voices were good and they worked for me. They suited the characters and while they maybe weren't totally consistent with what I imagined they still felt appropriate for the characters, so like I said they worked and they were expressive giving depth and feeling to his narration.

I have to admit I was looking forward to this story and up until around 85% I was really enjoying it, unfortunately the last part of the story took away from things in a big way.  So I'm going to move on to 'Plaid Versus Paisley' and cross my fingers and hope that things end up a whole lot better.