The Stolen Suitor by Eli Easton

Title: The Stolen Suitor
Series: N/A
Author: Eli Easton
Genre: Contemporary Western
Length: 270 pages
Publisher: Dreamspun Desires, Dreamspinner Press (February 1st, 2016)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥3 Hearts
Blurb: All of Clyde’s Corner, Montana, knows local dandy Chris Ramsey will marry Trix Stubben, young widow and heir to the richest ranch in the area. But one woman isn’t too keen on the idea. Mabe Crassen wants to get her hands on that ranch, so she sets her older son to court Trix, and her younger son, Jeremy, to distract Chris and lure him astray.

Jeremy Crassen thinks his mother’s scheme is crazy. But he wants desperately to go off to college, which Mabe will agree to—if he seduces Chris. How will shy, virginal, secretly gay Jeremy attract Chris, who seems determined to do the right thing and marry Trix? Jeremy can’t compete with a rich female widow.

Or can he?

ISBN: 9781634768665

Product Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=7317

Reviewer: Aerin

Review: Yikes, I usually love Eli Easton’s books, but like the most recent release (Midwinter Night’s Dream), this one fell short for me. I know exactly what the issues were, and I’m going to address every single one.

Chris’s best friend and Trix’s husband was killed in a freak accident, leaving behind a heartbroken wife, a confused, needy 4-year-old daughter, and a father who lost his only son. Chris is bisexual, but he’s leaning heavily towards the gay side of the scale. His decision to marry Trix is not derived from sexual attraction or love, but more from heartbreak in his personal life and the need to be the support system for his best friend’s broken little family.

Mabe Crassen has other plans in store for Chris and Trix, and none of those end with them happily married to each other. Eric, her older, lazy, couldn’t-give-a-fuck about anything son is to charm the pants off Trix, while Jeremy, her youngest, is given the task to distract Chris by any means necessary. Jeremy and Eric are very different from each other.

While Eric doesn’t really have any passions or motivation to become someone successful, Jeremy is a very smart, quiet and a talented writer who never had the opportunity to go to college and follow his dreams. Jeremy has always kept his sexuality a secret for fear of being treated like a freak. His relationship with Chris seemed forced to me, especially since there wasn’t much focus on it and the chemistry was pretty much nonexistent for most of the story.

There are two things that have absolutely no place in a book, and those happened both in Midwinter Night’s Dream as well as in this book: multiple POVs and a MF relationship thrown into the mix (it was a FF relationship in Midwinter Night’s Dream, but it was unwelcome nonetheless).

The multiple POVs distracted from Jeremy and Chris’s story to the point where I didn’t feel like they were the main characters anymore. Everyone and their cat had a POV, including Trix, Eric, Mabe (Jeremy and Eric’s mother) and Mabe’s old sweetheart Billy, who’s also Trix’s father in law. They all got a lot of page time people, and I was disappointed by that!

The writing was pretty good, and I’m happy that’s one thing that doesn’t change in Eli’s books. I sincerely hope that future books will be MM only, with only two POVs that belong entirely to the main characters.

* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *