AM Arthur Spotlight!

 

Three months after his rescue from an abusive boyfriend, twenty-two-year-old Romy Myers has landed his first legitimate job—bussing tables at his friend's new coffee shop. The job has brought him some stability after years of abuse have left him feeling damaged and broken. He's working hard on his panic and social anxiety, and those things are often tempered by the big, burly presence of Brendan Walker.

From the moment ex-football player Brendan helped rescue Romy from his ex's abuse, he's wanted to protect him. And he does, from a distance, with joking text messages, a new gym routine to toughen him up and a genuine friendship. So far it's been easy—but Brendan's feelings aren't just friendly anymore…

When an argument spirals out of control, a hot and heavy make-out session causes Romy's friendship with supposedly straight Brendan to reach a new level. The last thing Romy wants is to fall for another guy who could potentially shatter him, but Brendan also wakes up a part of him he thought had been destroyed by violence—his heart.

 

Warning:  This book contains descriptions of past abuse and rape to one of the main characters.

Wow this was an amazing book.  This was the first book I have read by this author and I was very impressed.  Romy and Brenden latched onto my heart and just wouldn’t let go.  I don’t think the author could have made two men more perfect for each other.  While Romy is physically the smaller and weaker of the pair he has an inner strength that has allowed him to survive things most people would not.  Brenden on the other hand is a huge ex-football player and looks every bit the part of a bouncer on the outside but on the inside he is quiet and sweet. 

Romy and Brenden were thrown together unexpectedly, but they saw something in each other and bonded.  It was so beautiful to watch Brenden, because while he was dealing with having to accept that he was a gay black man from a religious family and as scary as all that could be he never stopped supporting Romy.  He was a steady friend and I am really glad that the two of them were able to find safety and acceptance in each other’s arms.  This was a wonderful book and I can’t wait to read more by this author.

Amazon US || Barnes & Noble

 

“So make a plan for yourself.” Romy was getting excited over the idea of Brendan going back to college—maybe because Romy had never gone and probably never would. He didn’t even have his GED. And here he was giving Brendan career advice when the longest job he’d ever held in his life was as a hooker. “Figure out what it will cost to go back and finish. Figure out how you’ll save the money. Nothing is impossible, Bren, not if you want it bad enough.”

Brendan looked at him, chocolate brown eyes catching his, and something in that moment changed. Like a snap or a zing, Romy couldn’t describe it. Only that his words had touched something in Brendan, and that something leapt across the space between them and right into Romy. His pulse raced.

Oh crap.

Romy broke eye contact first, using the untwisting of his bottle cap as an excuse to kill the odd charge between them. Not happening. Not again, and not with Brendan. Brendan wasn’t even gay!

Was he?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not everyone gets a second chance with their first love.

Cost of Repairs, Book 5

David Weller thought he had it all—a loving partner who gave him a ring, a steady job he didn’t hate, and so much hope for the future. But in the wake of a devastating diagnosis, everything he thought was solid and real lay in pieces at his feet.

Four years later, he’s still sifting through the rubble of his life. His catering partnership occupies his days, while his nights are filled with dangerous sexual hookups and very bad decisions. Then the last person he ever expected to see again walks back into his life.

Owen Hart’s single biggest regret is the way he was forced to leave David behind—no explanations, no chance to make it right. Until now. Finally free of eight years of lies, Owen’s back for the only man he’s ever loved.

An incendiary encounter in a club proves that time hasn’t weakened their physical connection, but David’s wounds run deeper than Owen’s deception. And if David can’t first forgive, Owen doesn’t have a second chance in hell.

Warning: This book contains an Australian transplant with a head full of secrets, a party planner with enough baggage to sink a battleship, and a surly teenager who just wants them both to get over themselves.

This book is part of a series but each story seems to be standalone although some of the characters may overlap.  These characters made me ache for them.  Poor David was devastated when Owen and his son Michael left without a trace.  Then when Owen finally comes back we find out why he left and how miserable he was making that decision. 

You could feel the love between David and Owen and you want everything to work out between them but four years of hurt and betrayal is hard to heal and both men had to decide if it was worth trying to fix.  Ugh the drama and angst in this book is surprising and gut wrenching at times, but so worth the emotional investment.

One of the best parts of this book is Michael, Owen’s son.  He is a snarky, stubborn teenage boy that seems to be able to being out the best in both men.  He loves Owen and David and just wants them to be a family again.

I loved the premise that love is worth waiting and working for no matter how long or hard it is.

 

Amazon US || Barnes & Noble || Samhain

A shadow drifted across Owen's face—the same shadow that had been there almost constantly that first year.  An angry shadow that had diminished under the brilliance of their love for each other.  "We had to, me and my son both.  Michael was born Benjamin Hadley Swenson."

                "But why?"  David needed to know why he'd been lied to for so long.  Why he'd fallen in love with a man whose name he never really knew.

                "To protect us from the man who killed Michael's mother and grandfather."

                "You told me his mother was killed during a home invasion."

                "I used parts of the truth to fashion the lie.  Makes it easier to remember.  She was killed by a man who had no business in that house, but he wasn't there to rob anyone.  He was a dangerous man, and I did what I had to do to protect my son."

A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland.  She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop.  She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) and "The Young Riders" with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. 

                When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder.  She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments. 

Contact her at am_arthur@yahoo.com with your cooking tips (or book comments). You can also find her online (http://amarthur.blogspot.com/), as well as on Twitter (http://twitter.com/am_arthur), Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/blog/am-arthur), and Facebook (A.m. Arthur). A.M. Arthur's work is available from Samhain Publishing, Carina Press, Dreamspinner Press, and Musa Publishing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway