Thursday 30 June 2016

Fearless by Nicole Edwards (Book 2 in the Pier 70 series) - Review.


The tale of lost love, a ten-year hiatus, and a fateful coming together.  It could have been good.  It was, however more reminiscent of a split personality disorder.

The fantastical ideal that one could miss another person so much that they never ventured into another relationship at all in that period is ludicrous – and if it truly happens, then, it’s just sad.  They’re both young.  Dare Davis, even though only nineteen apparently knew what he wanted and when he didn’t get it he decided that commitment was no longer for him.  A little petulant at life’s vagaries don’t you think?  But I guess he was a teenager so that determination might be expected, but I’d hardly credit such attitude lasting ten years!  I understand, what with the added tragedy of Noah Pearson’s father, how he could decide his heart was hurt enough to throw himself into nothing but work, however.  That particular reaction at least rang with a little bit of truth.

One thing I didn’t understand though was that neither of them before their fateful reunion had been particularly active in the gay community.  Casual sex?  Yes a little bit apparently, but not a lot (and certainly not recently – we were all definitely assured of that, as if should they have behaved any other way they were less than worthy).  Really?  Why?  They were both young, impressionable, their whole lives ahead of them to explore their sexuality, their options, other possible relationships.  But did they have meaningful relationship or attachments?  Not at all!  Nada, none, diddly squat.  Um, yeah?  While I’m pretty sure this was a novel aimed at the growing audience of female MM romance readers, and even though I am one of them, I found the pandering to the supposed requirements of my demographic in this context, annoying.  It’s a fantasy perpetrated to ensure that a love lost is never forgotten, never gotten over, kind of like poor Molly in Ghost, doomed to live a life of loneliness because her one and only true love, Patrick Swayze’s Sam bit the big one and she’s now obligated to wait for death for their reunion ‘because love never dies.  You take it with you’.  It has little basis in reality and it shouldn’t.

So for all this pining, angst and self-denial, when the two do finally get together you’d expect with all that’s gone before, it would be romantic.  Not!  It becomes one all out shag-fest.  They can’t get enough of each other sexually, to the point where they forget to communicate with one another at all.

At least three times they split over some misunderstanding, some hurt feelings, and end up apologizing and starting over.  But they don’t talk.  They’re awkward, dishonest with each other and in the end I’m not actually sure they were at all right for one another after all.  They became two different people from the couple they were when young.  In the end their happiness felt contrive for no other reason than that the story had to end and that the two of them as MC’s must get together.  Personally I would have been better pleased if they had both grown up and moved on with a mature relationship with other more appropriate people.

It was however, nice to meet old friends from the previous instalment, and Nicole does write with a certain appealing sense of humour.  I liked the characters, but as with some other pairings this author has penned, just not together.

While I was not that taken with this offering, I have the next in the Pier 70 series and knowing that I do find I like some characters and situations over others in her many novels, I will continue with the next book about Teague Carter and Hudson Ballard in Speechless.  I don’t give up because when I least expect it, Nicole Edwards does present me with gems.

««1/2

Sydney Whyte

Rating Chart
«……………….A no goer
««……………Alright, but not a re-read
«««………..Liked it
««««…….Loved it

«««««Amaze-balls – ticks all the boxes!!!

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