Finding Forever in Cedarwood (Cedarwood Pride 9) by Megan Slayer at Pride Publishing
Genre | Gay / Contemporary / Artists/Actors/Musicians/Authors / Erotic Romance |
Reviewed by | Bob-O-Link on 14-July-2020 |
Genre | Gay / Contemporary / Artists/Actors/Musicians/Authors / Erotic Romance |
Reviewed by | Bob-O-Link on 14-July-2020 |
A celebrity can’t hide forever in a small town—not when love enters the picture.
Liam Blackwell’s career is in a slump and he needs a boost fast. What’s a celebrity to do when he needs experience in a small town? Go to Cedarwood. There are just three requirements—research the town, learn the script and don’t get romantically involved, because Liam hasn’t come out. No sweat, until a meeting in the center of town throws the plan all out of whack.
Stone McCartney lives for his job rescuing animals and finding them forever homes. He’s not looking for love, but when he sees Liam, he can’t help wanting to make a connection.
Can the budding relationship survive the ghosts from Stone’s past? Or will Liam and Stone part ways?
Reader advisory: This book contains a stalker, a shooting, and references to cruelty to animals.
I began my visit to Cedarwood with book seven of this nine-book series. As I now anticipate concluding my stay with this volume, I must provide an alert to those readers who are traveling with me: Take special care with ‘Finding Forever in Cedarwood’ if you either are color sensitive – particularly to Purple Prose, or ingest this volume’s sentimental presentation with extreme care if you are a ‘literary’ diabetic, likely to be adversely affected by cloying (nauseating?) sweet prose. Notwithstanding such genuine risks in ‘Finding Forever in Cedarwood’, many of you still will likely discover an enjoyable tale bound in easy prose.
On the asset side of the critic’s balance sheet, this volume is freestanding, and contains almost no distracting references to other events or personae of the ‘Cedarwood Pride’ series, except, perhaps for references to the anti-gay Coalition, which is evil personified. It is still there, but, much as the Devil, it seems more a bugaboo than an affecting force to the plot.
By this ninth volume, formula seems to have won out. Liam is an arche-typically drawn actor; he has “an (e)xpensive haircut, perfect teeth, and a tan… he was tall too. Blood surged below Stone’s belly.” Liam, long closeted, has worked hard so that his acting skills easily facilitate his portrayals of straight characters, making his life more functional. But, of course, some of the gay men he meets irritatingly insist that his true bent is obvious to them, though that may just be the expected mewing of a familiar, legendary, gay conceit.
Stone, the other main character, acknowledges the arrival of handsome Liam to his brother. (Arthur snapped. “Jesus. We don’t all think with our dick.” “You do.” He knew his brother.) And so the scene is set.
Each hero has problems relating to others, though Stone sublimates his solitude with an almost absurd devotion to abandoned animals. His dialog, probably shaped by habitually conversing with dogs and cats, is often inane, short and declamatory. You may find yourself reminiscing back to your first elementary school reading of ‘Dick and Jane’.
While Stone has had bad luck with past relationships, Liam is too often a one-off kind of sex partner. Ms. Slater artfully draws these two men, each of whose deficiencies is clearly designed to be “cured” by the other. Quickly and, finally, with detailed hormonal release, they come together. If anything is troublesome, it is the almost irrational immediacy of their attraction, its too prompt physical fulfillment, and the life changes it encourages.
Face it, dear readers, this is an ideal summer read if you are into the fairy tale style, and prefer those tales a little on the dirty side. [e.g. “Every ripple and nuance of Stone’s cock, the sound of the groans and the thrill of being possessed by this man…”]
DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Pride Publishing for the purpose of a review
Format | ebook |
Length | Novella, 155 pages/39028 words |
Heat Level | |
Publication Date | 30-June-2020 |
Price | $3.99 ebook |
Buy Link | https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/finding-forever-in-cedarwood |