Title: Same Page
Series: How the Light Gets In, Book #1
Author: Lily Velden
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novel (340 pages)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (June 14th, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit and Erotic
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5! Hearts
Blurb: Book One: How the Light Gets In
He was like the only splash of color in a black-and-white photograph.
The man was beautiful.
At an exhibition opening in Sydney, jaded Hollywood heartthrob Jaxon Moncrieff lays eyes on publicity-shy artist Liam Lassiter for the first time and is immediately captivated. But he doesn’t get far into their first conversation before he realizes what he’s feeling is attraction, which brings him up short. Jaxon has always been a womanizer.
Despite his reservations, Jaxon makes a play for Liam, but Liam has his own issues. Unlucky in love and orphaned at sixteen, he is reluctant to open his heart to anyone, and dismisses Jaxon out of hand.
Driven by a need he doesn’t understand, Jaxon organizes a return to Sydney to film his next project. If he can’t be with Liam, maybe they can be friends. Of course, that creates a whole new problem. Now Jaxon is falling in love for the first time. How can he move their relationship from friends to lovers without destroying the trust he’s worked so hard for?
Product Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3893
Reviewer: Tams
Review: Jaxon Moncrieff is gorgeous, famous, talented, and straight. The tall and tanned actor with his curly, shaggy blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes can have (and probably has) any woman he wants. While in Sydney promoting his latest movie and at the urging of his assistant and best friend, Alison, he attends an art showing. He spots a man across the room with red, gold, and brown hair and bronze eyes to match. He’s immediately captivated by the lean curves of his body, which throws him for a loop at first; he’s straight, so why is he feeling this immediate and overwhelming attraction to another man.
Liam Lassiter is a terribly gifted artist with a terrible past to match. Orphaned at sixteen and then raised by his parent’s best friend, Garrett, he’s only had two meaningful relationships that both ended in disaster. He’s jaded and bitter so as soon as Jaxon approaches him Liam dismisses him thinking Jaxon isn’t looking beyond his good looks.
They go their separate ways, but both men spend the next several months fixated on each other. Jaxon, more so than Liam. Even going as far as to strike up a friendship with Garrett just to get one step closer to the brooding and handsome artist. Jaxon ends up back in Sydney filming his next movie and, of course, his first stop is Liam. The two begin an unconventional friendship that blossoms into love. Can a relationship that truly is built on friendship and love survive the enigma that is Hollywood? Will Liam be able to leave his past in the past, or will his failed relationships drive a wedge between him and Jaxon?
This is by far one of the best M/M romances I have read, ever. It wasn’t insta-love by any means. Jaxon and Liam learned about each other and their pasts, became basically best friends before they became lovers. What they have to learn if they are going to make their relationship last is trust. Watching them fall in love was beautiful and mesmerizing, I couldn’t put the book down! Then once they finally come together what follows is not just a heated night of passion; it’s a full-blown love affair with all the bells and whistles! I thought my kindle might explode from all the heat these two put off in the bedroom, and the living room, and the shower. Oh good god, the things they do in the shower just might be illegal in a dozen or so states!
Extremely well written, emotional and passionate, Same Page is a love story at heart. Jaxon and Liam are three-dimensional characters with flaws and depth. Velden even gives us some page worthy secondary characters with Garrett and Alison, the two leading men’s respective best friends. Who, coincidentally, end up falling in love with each other. I anxiously await book 2 in this series, I’d pre-order it if Dreamspinner had it listed! HIGHLY recommend this book.