Title: Sins of Another
Author: Jessica Skye Davies
Genre: Contemporary, Bittersweet Dreams
Length: Novel (216pgs)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (29th April 2013)
Heat Level: Low
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3 ½ – 4 Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: One morning Padrig Kennedy comes home to find his partner, Nick Glenfielding, in bed with another man. Shocked, hurt, and vulnerable, Padrig flees and meets a stranger who seems to offer comfort—but he force-feeds Padrig a steady diet of drugs and prostitution instead. When he finally surfaces from his hell, it’s to another system shock: he’s now HIV positive.
Nick descends into darkness as well. Devastated by losing Padrig, he finds no consolation in the legal career he doesn’t love and tries to find solace in alcohol, spending his days in an ever-deepening haze.
Padrig and Nick find each other again, but their relationship can never be the same. If they’re to stand any chance of a future together, they must do the improbable: make sense of the past and learn to cope with new burdens they’ll bear for life.
A Bittersweet Dreams title: It’s an unfortunate truth: love doesn’t always conquer all. Regardless of its strength, sometimes fate intervenes, tragedy strikes, or forces conspire against it. These stories of romance do not offer a traditional happy ending, but the strong and enduring love will still touch your heart and maybe move you to tears.
Purchase Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3786
Review: When Padrig returns home from holiday he never expected to find his lover, Nick, in bed with another man. Fleeing the house, he runs to the park and finds himself in a position he can’t get himself out of. Drugged and forced into prostitution, Padrig is rescued by a stranger. Coming to in a hospital bed, he believes the worst is behind him, until he is told he is HIV positive. When Padrig and Nick reconnect, they both have much to say, but their relationship can never be the same again. Rebuilding a relationship from scratch, they both have burdens to share. can they really have a relationship with the past weighing down on them?
This is a very interesting story that has a very bittersweet ending that will tug at your heart. We join Padrig as he tells his story. From the moment his life changes forever and through the intervening years where he builds a new life and rediscovers love. We are with him as he makes friends and loses them, reconnects with old friends, as he works through his shock and new circumstances and with Nick’s help puts the pieces together of what happened to both of them and why.
This is a really well written story that delves into the life of a man who had his whole life ripped away from him, and, as he picks up the pieces, discovers that it will never be the same again. There is a lot that we discover in this story about Padrig and his friends, both old and new, and how Padrig process’s what happened to him. We briefly get an idea of what happened to Nick and we see Nick and Padrig rediscovering the love they once had and rebuilding a new life together and coping with HIV and the fear they both have when the medication begins to fail.
Although I liked this story I found that it dragged in places. I know that it was all about Padrig, but, it would have been nice to see what happened to Nick rather than him briefly explain years later what he went through. We see a lot about Padrig’s recovery and him getting back on his feet, dealing with HIV and the support that he receives from new friends. This is a sad story that has its bright moment. But, when you finish this story, you are left with a lingering sadness and tears in your eyes at the hopelessness of the situation that was caused by another’s sins.
I will recommend this story to those that love bittersweet stories, losing love, rediscovering love, tragic circumstances, a strong will to live life and an ending that will have you nearly crying.