Reviewed by Elbie
When Love Takes Over (Provincetown #1) by Jacob Z. Flores
Dreamspinner Press
Novel: 270pgs
4 Pants Off
Blurb:
Zach Kelly’s life is a
shambles. His boyfriend of three years dumped him, and his writing
career is going nowhere. On a whim, he heads to Provincetown,
Massachusetts, to nurse his broken heart and figure out his next step.
He’s expecting to find rest and relaxation on the sandy beaches of Cape
Cod. Instead, Zach meets a hunky porn star during a chance encounter at a
leather shop he mistakes as a place to buy a belt that is definitely
not for whipping.
Van Pierce is smitten when shy and
inexperienced Zach crashes through a shelf of fetish gear. Though Van’s
got an insatiable appetite for men on and off the set, his porn persona,
Hart Throb, hides a broken heart. He’s struggling to find the reality
the porno set doesn’t offer, and Zach is fighting to find the fantasy
that will set his writing on fire. The odd goofball and the suave
beefcake may either find love amid Provincetown’s colorful pageantry
where summer never seems to end—or more heartbreak than either can
imagine.
Review
Zach's long-term relationship implodes causing him to run from his
home in Texas to Provincetown, Massachusetts. His goal is escape. He
exceeds his goal by meeting a physically perfect dream of man, Van, who
turns out to be a porn star. Zach sets out to free himself from the
insecurities he carries from a childhood with a demanding father and a
relationship with a man that criticized Zach to make himself feel
superior.
Zach is an appealing character, speaking to
the part in all of us that stores the negative and unkind things we have
been told until they whisper to us, sabotaging our happiness. He's a
decent man, a deeply sexual man. People don't notice it through his
frumpy exterior. He sure doesn't believe it. Zach lands in
Provincetown, which might as well be Bizarro World for him. People find
him interesting and sexy. They want to be his friend, not to use him
as a focus of derision, but because they see something worthwhile in
him. It's so different from where he was in his life, he throws himself
into the P-Town experience with enthusiasm.
Van is
also dealing with hurt from a past relationship, one in which he was
valued only for his appearance. His response is to hire himself out
into the world of porn and take ownership of the pretty-boy, sex-toy
stereotype.
I had a much harder time relating to Van
than I did to Zach. Van’s decision to make porn seemed more
dysfunctional to me than it was portrayed and I wanted to tell him to
find his self-worth first, then make porn. Far be it from me to stop a
beautiful man from taking it on film, but Van made my caretaking
instincts twinge.
They meet and fall in love with all
of the best qualities in each other. Of course, everything cannot go
smoothly, THAT would be a boring story, and both men's anxieties
threaten to destroy their fragile, new relationship.
This
book was so much fun. Reading it felt like going on vacation. Love
comes quickly when the main characters meet and the conflict is slight
and easily resolved, but it’s what I wanted. No one wants to cry
poolside into their margarita. It was great to read about muscled
bottoms and ginger bears finding love and having phenomenal sex.
Even
though it’s not a ménage book, there is a third main character in this
book, and that’s Provincetown. The author creates that world on the
page. It’s a very grown-up playground where gay men can proudly show
off who they love and ask for what they want. They can also fuck with
enthusiasm, free from guilt and restrictive social mores. It’s not a
world free of judgment, though, as appearance is of utmost importance.
The sex in the book is written with a fun, filthy intensity that it
makes the sex seems like an honest interaction among all of the posing
and preening.
Honesty also shines through in the
supporting characters who inhabit Provincetown. They are colorful, but
not quirky to the point of seeming unreal. They truly seem like the
type of people who would choose to live in a summer town under invasion
from laughing, drinking, screwing hordes. I look forward to seeing the
cast of P-Town characters in future books in the series. They give the
world weight and depth amidst the partying.
As soon as I finished When Love Takes Over, I jumped right into Chasing the Sun, book two in the Provincetown series.
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| 4 Pants Off |
***
Chasing the Sun (Provincetown #2)
Dreamspinner Press
Novella: 118pgs
3.5 Pants Off
Blurb:
As a physician and
prominent citizen of Victoria, Texas, Dr. Gil Kelly took a hard fall
when his vengeful wife revealed his infidelity with other men. Closing
ranks around her, the town’s elite ostracized him, and his relationship
with his children was nearly destroyed.
After spending his life
focused on living for others, he has no idea how to live for himself. He
wants to find love but now settles for anonymous sex that only further
clouds his world with shame and guilt. Gil believes finding true love is
an unobtainable dream, what his father used to call “chasing the sun.”
Then
he runs into Tom Martinez, his son’s childhood best friend, who
returned to town a grown man and offers everything Gil needs. But Gil
hesitates to fall into Tom’s arms, because after his high-profile
divorce, the potential scandal of loving a younger man could separate
him from his children permanently.
Review
Chasing the Sun is a novella, the second story in the new
Provincetown series, and it tells the story of Gil, the father of Zach
from When Love Takes Over. Gil is mentioned several times in the first
book, but we see him from Zach’s perspective. Zach never felt his
father was proud of him and never came out to his father for fear
of disappointing him further. So, Zach was surprised when Gil was
embarrassingly outted. This breaks up the family and caused Zach to
completely disengage from their relationship.
We find
out in Chasing the Sun that Gil has been stunted since the dissolution
of his marriage. He has distanced himself from his children. He makes
excuses for his failure to find a meaningful relationship. He has cut
himself off from friends while still living in the home in Texas where
he lived as a husband and father. He has essentially imprisoned himself
in guilt and it serves no purpose. Most importantly, he is not making
anyone else’s life easier by continuing to punish himself.
Into
this mess of a life returns Tom, Zach’s best friend from his school
years. Tom comes back to his hometown to take over the family business.
He has grown into a self-assured, handsome man. Gil’s physical
reaction to Tom is immediate, but he suppresses it with memories of Tom
as a child and teen. Tom feels an attraction, too, and he is ready to
act on it. We don’t learn much about Tom as a person, he seems without
flaw and unreal. He serves as more of a catalyst to the main story.
That is because the conflict is this book is not the typical one between
our two main characters. Their relationship forms fairly smoothly and
is a strong one. The conflict comes from Gil’s internal battle to
forgive himself, to repair the broken relationships in his life, and to
stop living the life of a pariah.
I was torn on my
feelings about Gil. My immediate reaction was one of anger. As a
woman, I empathized with his ex-wife even though we don’t meet her until
later in the book. I imagined I would be so hurt and humiliated in her
situation. Not only did she find out her husband was gay, but that he
had been cheating on her. As the story continued, I came to understand
Gil more. I could tell that he never wanted to disappoint his family.
He felt like a prisoner and a liar married to his wife. He couldn’t
continue to live that way. I wish he had ended the marriage first
instead of cheating. It stood in the way of making Gil a sympathetic
character. It did make him a real character. I thought his struggle to
find his way out of the woods felt genuine as well as the reactions of
his friends and family. The story felt very personal and it was good
enough and the characters were rich enough to fill a longer book. The
conclusion felt a bit too rushed and tidy. Also, I missed Provincetown!
I give
When Love Takes Over a solid four pants off, it
is a book I would read again. I give
Chasing the Sun 3.5 pants off and
consider it a book I am glad I read.
It should be
noted that
When Love Takes Over and
Chasing the Sun are self-contained
books and do not need to be read together. I do think Zach’s reaction
to his father in Chasing the Sun is more easily understood if you have
already read his story and understand where he is in his life. And, if
you are like me, when you find a world you like, you want to read
everything in it. I look forward to more books in the Provincetown
series and plan on reading them all.
Since I read these
books consecutively and I have read other works by Jacob Flores, I have
to make one general statement: this author knows how to write sex. His
books are full of emotional turmoil and subtle relationship dynamics
which make my estrogen rise. But when he turns on the heat,
testosterone rules. His sex scenes go beyond getting down and dirty,
they are cathartic in their depiction of raw pleasure and release.
Damn. I want to cheer the orgasms! I often find myself reading sex
from other authors and it’s all about welling emotions and almost
spiritual connectedness. Sometimes connectedness can come from the
shared pleasure of a thorough, raucous pounding. If you love someone,
making them feel hot and wanted is a great way to show it. That’s what
you get in a Flores book. And it’s a good thing.
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| 3.5 Pants Off |
