My Take in Brief: Confronting my prejudices has never been more enjoyable.
Series? Yes. this is the fourth Adrien English mystery. It was the first I read, and while the mystery stands alone, the romance/s began in a previous book. If I had a do-over, I would not read this first.
Heroes: Adrien English is the owner of an independent L.A. book store and a mystery writer who tends to get involved, Miss Marple style, in solving real life mysteries. He has a chronic heart condition, not just medically but also emotionally, thanks to his troubled relationships with his current partner, tweedy professor Guy, and the ex who broke his heart, tough, closeted and married cop, Jake.
Plot: In the opening pages, the man who is financing a film version of one of Adrien’s books is poisoned. When Adrien gets involved in solving the case, he reenters Jake’s orbit, creating concerns and jealousy on the part of his wary partner, Guy.
Fun factoid: Lanyon fans are sometimes called “fanyons”, although not all of them like it, and Lanyon was a guest blogger recently at Jessewave.
Word on the Web:
Book Utopia, 44 out of 50
Reviewing the Evidence, positive
Jessewave, positive
Teddypig, positive
Amazon.com, 5 stars after 20 reviews
The Racy Romance Review:
I got the idea that this was erotic romance, maybe because the print publisher, ManLoveRomance refers to itself as a publisher of Gay Erotic Fiction. But there was no sex until page 155 in a 234 page book, and only one brief and pretty nonexplicit sex scene after that (switch the gender and it could have been in a historical romance). This book made me ask myself what counts as erotica: Is it based on amount and/or explicitness of the sex? Is any romance between two men, regardless of level of explicitness, considered erotica? Or does it depend not in the text but on the organizational context: i.e. the publishers themselves are erotica publishers? I have no idea, but either way, this is not a good choice if you are looking for lots of explicit sex.
