H.L. Day - The Reluctant Companion

Sebastian might have the power to summon animals, but winning Jack over? Far more difficult.
As first encounters go, Jack and Sebastian’s isn’t ideal, leaving Jack nursing a grudge he’s not about to let go of in a hurry. Yet, if Jack is to find his missing sister, and Sebastian is to rescue his captured prince, they’ll need to set their differences aside and work as a team.
Jack is stubborn and somewhat volatile. Sebastian is vain and clearly in love with himself. But as the unlikely companions face all manner of dangers together, they grow closer. Rescuing the prince should be easy. Rescuing him from an impenetrable tower guarded by dragon-shifting knights? Okay, that part is harder.
But once the adventure is over, letting Sebastian go might be the hardest thing Jack has ever had to do.

Comment: I saw some good reviews on this book and thought the premise was quite appealing to me, and that convinced me to add it to my TBR list. I finally picked it up and liked it, but I confess I hoped for something more.

In this story we meet Jack, a young man who is looking for his sister after she left home and didn't return. He believes he will be able to help her but first he needs to find her and that has proven complicated. Things change when, as he is taking a short pause before carrying on with his journey, a monkey only he seems to see steals his money. By following the monkey, he stumbles on Sebastian,a gorgeous man who seems to provoke him too easily. At first Jack is wary of Sebastian, but they decide to travel together, Sebastian will help Jack finding his sister and agrees to double the money he had taken from Jack. However, despite their different personalities and the annoyance Sebastian is to him, Jack still can't hep but feeling attracted...

My eagerness to read this story started to diminish from early on. I liked the premise and the suggestion of the words "opposites attract" which tends to be a trope I enjoy in romance, but as soon as the story begins, I started to lose some faith because while the plot was a great adventure and the protagonists are truly very different personality wise, their chemistry just wasn't demonstrated in the best way, in my opinion.

The story is narrated by Jack and Sebastian in first person and, as it often happens, I feel this wasn't the best option here, and would have preferred third person, even if focused on the two of them as it is. To me, this first person option is so limited and makes the characters seem foolish or too conceited and I like it more when the stories are in third person and we see the advance and evolution of them and of the plot by actions and descriptions and not by their own words. First person can be a great choice for certain genres (like thrillers) but when it comes to romance, it's not always great.

Jack is a reluctant team player but I liked him and I could empathize with his emotions more easily than with Sebastian's. His personality is also similar to mine and I could see myself thinking this and that alongside him. Sebastian is bubbly and loud and silly and hides his heart of gold under a flamboyant personality and behavior. On paper, they are opposites and their romance should be sweet and fierce but the opposition of their personalities only reflected on their behavior superficially and once they started having feelings for one another, they didn't struggle much with them.

I did like that the 13 kingdoms universe the author created seems to be an accepting world and that people can love and be with whomever they are attracted to, but that means that there didn't seem to exist any real conflict for the guys after they started to get along. As the story progresses, of course we realize a few details that might be enough to make them apart, but if they are falling in love, would those reasons be enough after all? I suppose that scenario will only happen if the author forces the issue to delay their HEA, but the dynamics seem to have been established already and they are now together.

This means that once they got a few issues out of the way and told one another what they felt, the story lost some urgency and the final actions required to finish the book were more than predictable. When the story ends they decide to stay together and go on another adventure... I did like this notion they would share something and that their relationship seems solid enough now, but my happiness for their partnership and relationship doesn't mean I was amazed by the process. In a world with magic and acceptance, the potential seemed endless and it turned out things were quietly developed and easily presented.

Where was the fun, where was the sexual tension, where was the need to find out if the other person was interested, where was the importance of why that person, why that situation..? The impression I got after reading is that this isn't the author's style and that's fine, but it was still what I hoped for. Therefore, I liked the story and the quirky details in their adventures, but this wasn't as romantic nor as charismatic as I thought from the blurb alone. It's a cozy type of story and that's fine, but I still think of other possibilities and how much better they could have been...

Grade: 6/10