Title: Inheritance
Series: N/A
Author: Sean Michael
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella (99 pages)
Publisher: Torquere Press (November 6th, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 2.75 Hearts
Reviewer: Eli/Mandingo
Blurb: Cash McCord loves his life. He owns the family ranch, works hard and invites the occasional cowboy into his bed. All that changes when his brother Jack and Jack’s wife Val are killed in a car crash, leaving behind six kids.
Cash is made guardian along with Val’s brother Brad Rafferty. Brad couldn’t be more different than Cash. A Yankee, Brad is a video game developer who works twelve to fourteen hour days at his desk. The two men lock horns on sight, neither man happy to have the other around, but neither willing to give up guardianship of their nieces and nephews.
Can they manage to keep the kids together, and keep from killing each other at the same time?
Originally published in the Family Matters anthology
Purchase Link: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=78_85&products_id=4057
Review: Okay so let me state the first thing I liked about this book. It is authentic to how men behave. Often in m/m romance books, there is an element of men behaving in ways that are slightly out of character. In this book, the men meet, have some misgivings about each other, but recognize an attraction and immediately act upon it without any romanticized notions. BRAVO! Okay so let’s move on from there.
The book opens with the men having to navigate a horrific tragedy while trying to assume the role of parents all at the same time. I think this is a phenomenal story idea, I don’t, however, think that all the themes could be addressed in a satisfactory fashion in only 100 pages. What themes do you ask? First, there is the loss of family, which is in itself a book. Second, there is how the SIX children (the sheer number is mind-boggling) must navigate the loss of BOTH their parents and then be third taken care of uncles who have never taken care of children before. Then add to that the challenge of assuming all those responsibilities while juggling careers. It’s a lot!
Now don’t get me wrong – this is very real and could happen – but to attempt to do justice to all these themes in 99 pages is ambitious. But I will say that there is a genuine approach to dealing with it all, it’s just that themes like these require deeper exploration than could be accomplished in 99 pages.
Oh and there is clearly some unresolved personal drama with Brad and his family – that is also brought into the story. This is the first insight we get into Brad, but neither Brad nor Cash are fully developed characters so the reader wants to get the inside scoop, but it never happens. The references in the story to the departed parents (the respective brother and sister) provide some insight, but not enough for the reader to become fully invested in the coupling of Brad and Cash. The reader doesn’t see any real connection between the men except a strong physical attraction and their commitment to the children. As such, the reader wants them to succeed not because of wanting to see them as a couple, but really more to provide a stable foundation for the children.
If the intent was to establish the quick and intense heat the men felt towards each other due to the tragic circumstances, then that’s established. However, since these previously mentioned themes are very artfully brought into the picture, the reader will want to see those themes further developed. Since they aren’t, the ending appeared rushed and unfinished.
Here’s my wish – that this author revisit this story one day and continue to develop all the themes. This is NOT a short story – tackling all those themes is really about coming face to face with the human experience in its full capacity – now THAT’s a story. Think about it? These men become insta-parents to emotionally wrecked CHILDREN – six of them, how do they manage this? How does Brad handle this when his own childhood seems to have been fraught with issues of abandonment? How do these men adjust to change their lives and create a new reality from the debris that they’ve been left to manage? And what happens to them as men when they must now reinvent themselves? What is it that will make Brad and Cash become a stable couple to provide these children with the life they so clearly wish to give them? Why should the reader root for them as men and lovers and not just as potential parents? And most importantly – How do Brad, Cash and the children learn to grow and love each other and become a family?