Title: Real Good Man
Series: Canadian Heroes 02
Author: Elise Whyles
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: Novel
Publisher: Liquid Silver Books (February 17th, 2013)
Reviewer: Thommie
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥2Hearts
Blurb: Sean Tisman lives in fear of his father’s prejudice. When he’s stationed in Banff he’s determined to live life on his terms. When he meets his counterpart, Sean’s world is thrown into further upheaval.
Luke Marshall is a man licking his wounds. After a bad break with his ex, he’s relieved to be given his old post; that is until he meets the man of his dreams in the young game warden assigned to Banff. Can their love survive the secrets and danger that lie in wait for them?
Product Link: http://www.lsbooks.com/real-good-man-p756.php
Review: Luke has just come out of a relationship that’s left him uneasy and distrusting. Finding your partner in your house, in your bed with another man can be your undoing. Now, he goes back to work determined to get past those feeling and never to let himself get in such position again. But, one look at his new partner and his brain melts.
Sean escapes his family’s controlling attitude by choosing to work deep in the National Park. He thinks his father’s bigotry won’t get him over there. Coming to terms with his sexuality and trying baby steps in his new life, he never saw it coming. The desire and lust he felt the moment he laid eyes on Luke knocked the breath out of him.
Both men circle around one another, frustration and arousal growing until they both snap and… the relief when they find out that both are gay, both attracted to each other and the only thing they have to do is act on it. But, things are not so easy in life and there are shadows lurking in the corners. Someone out there is up to no good and their life might be in serious danger.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But things didn’t go the way I expected. This book was very hard to read.
Let’s start with characters. I have no idea why they fell in love with each other. I get the lust part, both are described as hot. Luke being a mature man, sexy as hell, the classic well fit body that makes your mouth water, etc. etc. And Sean, of course, has his appeal, what with his incredibly fit body and green eyes. Add there the allure of being a virgin and hell, who wouldn’t fall in lust with him. But, beyond that I have no idea who these men were, or how they fell for each other so completely. They had no quality time that I can recall of, they had no conversations as co-worker/friends that would indicate an appreciation toward each other, and they had no flirt going on between them.
At the beginning they had fantasies (very detailed ones) about each other and then the frustration part hit where each guy said something with the other answering with an off topic answer, the dialogue not making sense at all, and in the blink of an eye both have declared how they feel. The strange thing is, up until the end of the book, I don’t think I saw them having a simple talk, you know, a conversation. It was all assuming in their head and ranting when they exploded for pretty much everything. Always running in circles and issues that ran in their heads, very, very frustrating to read.
The story between them continues in the same vague way it started. The fantasies are replaced with “real” sex and they keep thinking they love each other, kept saying so too, still with no event happening between them to indicated the how’s and the why’s… The only reasoning was that Luke loves gorgeous, sweet, bird-lover Sean, and Sean loves the hunk, hot, straightforward Luke… What I got from both of them were insecurities to hell and beyond from Sean and knee-jerk reactions from Luke. That’s it.
Their love-making sessions are not even worth mentioning for me, beside the fact that they kept circling round and round. The author would start same way as always, keep the tension up and when you thought it was ending, it would slow down and the other character would take over to do the exact same thing all over again. Once I think a scene must have started and reached near end to start over again about three times. Not my idea of fun. I’m not even going to go on the pair’s first time/Sean’s first time too, at all. I won’t touch that subject. But a little heads up on revision, you need to keep track of what you write because when you mention the use of condom and then sperm is sprawled over your character’s body then something went amiss there. And should I mention that those two guys seemed to have forgotten their job once they got together? It was odd; it was as if they were on vacation and occasionally reporting a fire that a plane took care of. I don’t know, perhaps their job was indeed that easy.
Going on with the action plot I’m afraid this was the worse one I’ve yet read. The villains (yes there were too many bad guys here) were ridiculous. Sean’s father was beyond the realm of imagination, the dialogues between them made me want to weep and Sean’s behavior in relation with his father was non-comprehensible. We never found out what was this community they lived in, or why Sean allowed this man so much. The abuse he suffered as a child understandably marred him, still an adult Sean allowing all that was beyond comprehension. Don’t know. We never understood what the deal with the electrical fence was either; we never understood why on earth Sean kept answering the phone and how a simple farmer could be such a great menace… I am definitely NOT going to comment on Sean’s mother. That left my jaw hanging for more than I care to admit.
As for Luke and his chaos of a life, well I don’t know, ex-partners can be terrifying at times, especially when you’ve found them cheating on you and they have no ground to demand you take them back, but still expecting a man to go on putting a park on fire over and over again because he wants you back is a bit too much.
No, nothing in this plot had solidity. There was no structure there, no path to follow, only random bits and pieces and a hell of a lot melodramatic scenes that were meant to tug at your heart, but utterly failed to do so.