As a prosecuting attorney, Mal’s learned how to read people, and he knows there’s more to Evan than meets the eye. Mal has faced his own hardships since his family kicked him out as a teen, and he respects Evan’s courage and emotional resilience. More than that, he wants Evan—in his bed and in his life. But can he weather another rejection?
Both wary, they agree to a no-strings fling. Mal knows that Evan wants things to stay casual, but he’s falling in love a little more with each encounter. With health, happiness, and bruised hearts on the line, Mal and Evan must risk everything for love.
Comment: Last year I've read a book by this author and it had enough elements that made me like it. I've decided to try something else by the author, but instead of fantasy this time I've tried a contemporary.
Evan Doyle is a nurse at a posh nursing home and he has a pretty solid life now, but he almost has a panic attack when he randomly and suddenly sees his twin sister in front of him. Caroline had not been in his life since they were both teenagers, and why they separated is still a traumatic event in his life, but now that they are older, perhaps they can reconnect. They agree to meet the next day but Caroline shows up with her best friend Mal, who immediately feels too arrogant for Evan, despite the clear attraction between them. Mal is known to go after what he wants but will he win over a reluctant Evan? Will Mal still want Evan once he discovers what he did in his past?
As a whole, this was an interesting and captivating story. Thinking about it with more eye for detail, I could probably compare it with the other one I had read and not many differences would exist in the author's style, despite them being different genres. On one hand, this means the author has a consistent style, on the other it means perhaps all the books will have a similar "flavor".
The plot is actually a bit complex, in the sense that Evan and Caroline had a traumatic situation happening to them when they were teenagers, their mother died and they were placed in different homes. Evan realized that his mother and her boyfriend were doing undesirable things, drug related, in a certain area of their house, and sometimes had other men there. He decided to help protect his sister doing something but he lacked maturity (I would say clarity too) to understand the price he would pay for that. I cannot imagine where this scenario, the way the author presented things, would not have been solved by going to the police or any other authority, but... anyway....
Apparently, this had to happen so that Evan could learn his lesson and would want to be a better person, but this means he still lives with the trauma of what he did and he is now almost an introvert. Reconnecting with Caroline again, after she moved to the city Evan now lives (and randomly seeing each other on the street, what are the odds), is a blessing and a worry, for he fears the events of the past might mean the bad people he interacted with might still want revenge if they find them. I could accept this thinking and why Evan would be worried, but it does feel as if some things were just too dramatic. For me, this means other elements - such as the romance - then seem too superficially done.
Evan is a likable character and, thankfully, there are no scenes nor memories where he revisits what he did as a teenager. What he was part of was certainly terrible and I'm glad we didn't have to see that through his eyes, but it did make him a reserved person, who believes he isn't worth of things others have easily, like a steady relationship. I tend to like stories where one character doesn't have a lot of self esteem and then, of course, learns they can trust the other person, be liked by who they are and so on, and I fully expected Mal to be that for Evan.
In a way, this is exactly what happens, but Mal wasn't the alpha type I thought he would be just by the description and the first chapters. He is actually a lot more vulnerable, emotionally, and it was an even more gratifying experience to see him being revealed as an attentive and caring person, not only towards Evan, but also in his inner self, especially since he had had a terrible experience with his parents when he came out. He is a lawyer now and gained confidence but the best part was precisely how he was patient with Evan, which made their romance a sweet one, for the most part.
As a matter of fact, the romance isn't spectacular, and having in consideration the doubts they have regarding their own feelings, Evan's in particular, I'd say the romance is a little slow or, perhaps in a better way, the romance almost feels a little one sided, but I'm happy Evan was able to acknowledge he had found in Mal someone who could be by his side. The sequence of situations close to the end was a little too quick, when comparing to the rest of the novel, but that didn't ruin the overall effect to me.
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