I recently blogged about my disenchantment with contemporary romance, and concluded that it was the lack of compelling conflict that was the problem for me. For me, believable conflict is thinner on the ground in contemporary romance than in any other sub-category of romance. Whereas in historicals - disapproving governesses, slutty rakes - and in paranormals - blood-suckers, death, immortality - the conflict is right there, bred into the bones of the story.

I should have added to my post that M/M romance is another sub-genre with built-in conflict. If I had done so, I could have neatly quoted Jay, one of the protaganists from Bonnie Dee’s new novel, Undeniable Magnetism:

“Daring to trust is hard enough in any relationship, but for a gay man it’s compounded. There’s a lot more at stake than two guys who happen to like each other and want to become involved. There’s a whole raft of outside issues impacting them.”

With M/M romance, you don’t need to manufacture a WTF storyline or a Big Mis to provide the conflict. You can have your Romeo and Juliet (or Romeo and Mercutio) doing their ‘You And Me Against The World, Baby’. Conflict - sorted.

And so, in this book we get two rather lovely men - Jay and Simon - who fall headlong for each other but who have a few obstacles to negotiate on the path to their HEA.

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Teddy Pig, who does a great line in - well, great lines, described this book as ‘Regency Gayness in Space’. And I couldn’t put it better myself. And before I go any further - I can’t hold it back - I liked this book.

Ok …. rewind.

The Cover

I don’t generally like mantitty covers, but…. this is a mantitty cover with hair. And I’m already officially on record as liking moustaches [Bam: Grody!]. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m partial to a hairy chest. Yes, I likes me the hirsute fellows.

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Grade: A-

This is the first boy-on-boy romance that I’ve ever read and based on this book alone, I think I shall be looking for more. It’s well-written, sexy as hell, and shows wonderful character development. Basically, this book is about a heterosexual male cop who finds himself in love with his heterosexual male cop partner when he’s never been attracted to other men before. I really enjoyed the way Anderson portrayed the hero’s the protagonist’s struggle with his own sexuality and his gradual realization that he is in love with his best friend. What makes this book work is that it is obvious that Anderson, a female writer, respected the people that she was writing about. Though she sticks them in ridiculous situations where the two male leads are forced to physically express themselves to each other, I never got the impression that Anderson is exploiting them. For all I know, she could have giggled her way through every sex scene that she wrote, but it doesn’t come off that way at all. The dialogue and the emotional confrontations between the two male leads are sincere and evocative. I read it thinking I was gonna read about boy-on-boy buttsex between two cops, but you know, it’s a lot more than that. It’s really too bad that the protagonist could be as annoying and whiny as any romance heroine, but hey, it is still a romance novel, after all.
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