Title: Love and Salvage: Eli’s Three Wishes
Series: Love and Salvage, #2
Author: Mathew Ortiz, (Editor) C. Moriatry and (Illustrator) William Bristol
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella (142 pages)
Publisher: Mathew Ortiz (January 10th, 2014)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 3 Hearts
Reviewer: Eli/Mandingo
Blurb: Eli Gaither was a big, rough, mean sumabitch of a man. Solitary by choice, he only attended Gaither family events when he was made to. Still hurting from a painful divorce, he was like an angry bear licking his wounds. Most people, save for his family, avoided him until Oscar Hernandez came into his life, yelling at him and turning his world upside down.
Okay, maybe he was plain loco for hitting on the grizzly bear of a man in front of him but he couldn’t help it. The man was so freaking hot. But Oscar was not about to let this man tell him what to do and how to think. If Eli Gaither thought him a shrinking violet, he had another thing coming. Oscar was used to getting his way, so Eli was in for the ride of his life with the hot-blooded Latin man.
Review: This is the second story in the Love and Salvage series featuring men from the Gaither clan. The story does stand on its own, but the author does attempt to connect this book with the prior one by using the characters to round out his storyline. There are even references to characters in his other Renovation series. This technique ties all the stories together and allows the reader to create connections with a variety of characters. The net result is that the characters are very three-dimensional as the reader has the ability to view them from many different angles.
Eli is a very conflicted man who’s trying to adjust to his new reality of being divorced, out and attracted to a younger man. The younger man to whom he’s attracted is a very feisty Latino who’s been told that he’s often high maintenance and too much and that he’d too better to simply calm down if he wishes to maintain a relationship with Eli. Both men must face their individual issues and they do so with the help of friends and family.
The end does not tie their HEA into a neat bow, so the reader must assume that more about their future will appear in the next story. Part of the charm of this story was the relationship between Eli and his son.
Great second instalment. Looking forward to the next one.