Forty-five-year-old English professor Nathan Qells is very good at making people feel important. What he’s not very good at is sticking around afterward. He’s a nice guy; he just doesn’t feel things the way other people do. So even after all the time he’s spent taking care of Michael, the kid across the hall, he doesn’t realize that Michael’s mob muscle uncle and guardian, Andreo Fiore, has … slowly been falling in love with him.
Dreo has bigger problems than getting Nate to see him as a potential partner. He’s raising his nephew, trying to leave his unsavory job, and starting his own business, a process made infinitely more difficult when a series of hits takes out some key underworld players. Still, Dreo is determined to build a life he can be proud of–a life with Nate as a cornerstone. A life that is starting to look like exactly what Nate has been seeking. Unfortunately for Dreo–and for Nate–the last hits were just part of a major reorganization, and Dreo’s obvious love for Nate has made him a target too.
Honorable Mention: Best LGBT Cover
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Mary Calmes is probably one of my favorite romance authors. Many of her books are comfort reads for me, and this is definitely one of them. Nate is a truly appealing main character and great central voice, incredibly likable. The drama is fun and fast-paced, there are lots of themes of found family which I always enjoy. The sex is hot yet also super romantic. So really, what’s not to love? Oh also it tackles one of my personal favorite romance themes: May-December where the younger man is the aggressor.
However, if you are expecting the traditional style and pace of a bog-standard romance novel, with Mary you’re likely to be disappointed. Like many of her books, Acrobat (not about an acrobat) is conversational and gentle and rambling. This feels more realistic to me, and more like actual relationships. Everything still ends happily, and many of the standard romance archetypes are in place, it’s just that the execution pattern is abnormal. I really like that. Her books often read more like windows into the life of the main character at the time when they meet their eventual forever love.
Thus we see Nate dating and even liking another man, even though we know that’s not the man he ends up.
I enjoy Mary’s characters so much, that I don’t mind simply spending time with them, even if they are dating other people. Although, there is never any cheating and it will all come out fine in the end.
If you like this one in particular I suggest trying Frog next. Frog
I loved this! It shows that you never know who you’ll fall in love with or when!
Nate is a cinnamon roll with something to learn, our sole point of view character, and this is a deceptively clever novel because of it. Some reviewers missed the point entirely, having never caught on, I guess, to the fact that each of us is an unreliable narrator about ourselves. I suspect it would’ve been clearer in first person, but that’s an author’s personal choice.
We all have blind spots, aspects of ourselves we are incapable of seeing without help, and we all too often reject that help as silly.
Nate is in that camp. I have met a person or two like Nate – very likable, intuitively helpful, deeply caring and accepting, refusing to play the verbal/emotional games many people mire themselves in. It’s hard to believe they miss things, but they do. We all do. So even though I think the ending could’ve been a little more concise, I loved this story very much. Writing such a likable character and yet lovingly revealing his biggest flaw takes real talent. His blind spot is huge, shocking to him. But his reactions are all Nate.
This is a very good single POV romance with a cast of characters second to none and a slow burn to smokin’ hot sex scenes. Recommended. And thank you to my library for having a digital copy I could borrow!
“Who gives a damn what a man does in his bed? It only matters what the man does in the world, for the people he loves.”
Alrighty . . . . Bare with me while I try and get a review that will be coherent.
I was recommended this book and by far it is the best recommendation ever, this is my #1 MM read and is going to be Very hard to top.
Alright, let us start with Nate.
The hot 45-year-old English Professor who is genuinely an all-around great guy who is loved and adored by his son, his ex-wife, her hubs, his students, work college, pretty much everyone he comes in contact with, especially Michael Fiore, the sixteen-year-old kid next door who has kind of adopted Nate as his fill in parent when he moved in with his Uncle Dreo after his mother passed away four years earlier.
After coming out of a 2-year secret relationship with closeted Duncan, Nate is left heart broken. Fast forward a year and a half and he is still in a bit of a slump after losing the man he believes he loved but is ready to get back on the horse, so to speak. When his former student that he has been crushing on makes it known he is very much interested in the older, hot Professor, Nate decides to give the good Doctor Sean a try. And try he does. Sean is . . . . an ass lol Sorry it has to be said.
The timing was way off for these two, with Sean wanting to explore all his options and Nate wanting to find someone he can settle with. It didn’t take too long to realize that while he was gorgeous, they just weren’t what the other really needed, wanted.
Thank God for that too, because if that was the case, sexy Italian Mob muscle Andreo “Dreo” Fiore wouldn’t have had a chance with the man he has been in love with for the last four years as he watched his neighbor care for and basically help raise his nephew, even if they had barely spoken.
Dreo comes across as your typical Italian Mob guy, perfect toned body, dark hair and darker eyes with a deep husky voice, a questionable past and a feared reputation to boot. But that is just the surface of Dreo. He is trying to be a man that his nephew can be proud of and the man that Nate deserves, but to do that, he must leave the line of work and lifestyle he is in, which isn’t an easy feat. Italian Mob’s aren’t too forgiving with homosexuality it seems nor are they easy to get away from.
Being with someone like Dreo is dangerous, no matter how hot the man is, you just know here is going to be some trouble with these two. But hey, it’s alright, Everything will be fine, promise
This seriously turned into an insta-love, and normally I just do not get into that, but there is something so real, so raw about Nate and Dreo, it just works, you know?
My only complaint is that I want more! I want more Dreo, I want to see inside his head when he looks at Nate, and how this little family full of love and support grows. Come on Mary, these guys need a book two! You know you wanna
“I never thought—” He caught his breath. “—that you could want me.”
“You’re so beautiful. Anyone would want you.”
“No,” he said, his voice a deep rumble in his chest. “When I’m with you, just standing with you, I’m different, lighter, softer…. Your influence, you change me.”