Part of the Coda Series When Jonathan Kechter agrees to a blind date with Cole Fenton, he expects nothing more than dinner and a one-night stand… but he gets more than he bargained for in Cole. Cole is arrogant, flamboyant, and definitely not Jon’s type. Still, when Cole suggests an arrangement of getting together for casual sex whenever they’re both in town, Jon readily agrees. Their … agrees.
Their arrangement may be casual, but Jonathan soon learns that when it comes to Cole Fenton, nothing is easy. Between Cole’s fear of intimacy and his wandering lifestyle, Jonathan wonders if their relationship may be doomed from the start–but the more Cole pushes him away, the more determined Jon is to make it work.
Best Gay Contemporary Romance – Second Place, 2010Best Character Development – Tied for Third Place, 2010
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Jonathan Kechter is a work-a-holic who doesn’t seem to know how to say no to his boss. After a bad break-up ten years before, he joined the grind of the young and upwardly mobile, sacrificing anything closely resembling a personal life, all for the sake of his career. He’s never bothered to set boundaries between his job and his life outside of work because he simply doesn’t have a life outside of work. While Jonathan seems entirely content with the status quo of constant traveling and 24/7 business calls—with the occasional, meaningless hook-up here and there—the grind is clearly beginning to wear him down; then one particular and unexpected phone call sets his world on end.
Cole Fenton is the embodiment of the saying, money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable. The trophy son of a neglectful trophy mother and deceased father, Cole is the epitome of the poor little rich boy: wealthy, arrogant, and aloof; Cole is a conundrum, wrapped in an enigma, tied up in a mystery. He wears his sexuality like a series of masks, which he changes to accommodate his mood, the setting, or the situation. Cole has serious intimacy issues, throwing barriers up at every turn, all in an effort to keep people from getting too close and seeing who he truly is. The fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, and fear of making himself vulnerable, all serve to reinforce the walls.
So, how do two men on opposite ends of life’s spectrum find compatibility? It’s that question that makes up the very heart of Strawberries for Dessert. Jonathan has never been attracted to flamboyantly gay men, yet Cole fluctuates between being charmingly flirty and unabashedly effusive. Jonathan’s identity is entirely connected to his career, while Cole has never had to work a day in his life. Jonathan prides himself on being financially self-supportive, while Cole has no idea how much money he even has. After a series of disastrous dates, I admit to wondering how two such dissimilar men, who came together from such opposite starting points, would ever converge successfully. I needn’t have worried, however, because Marie Sexton obviously knows her characters and precisely how to navigate all their complexities.
Strawberries for Dessert was an absolute feast for me. I love character driven pieces and love even more when an author draws those characters so effectively that I find myself emotionally involved in the outcome of their story. I was thrown as entirely off balance by Cole as Jonathan was, attempting to decipher precisely what motivated each and every one of his actions. He was, at times, larger than life, while at other times, he seemed to be nothing more than a shadow going through the motions of the life that he’d assembled for himself, not content to stay in any one place too long and not realizing that he spent so much time running away from happiness. In the end, what both he and Jonathan learn is that home is not necessarily the bricks and mortar surrounding the accumulated possessions; rather, home is defined by the person there waiting for us at the end of the day. Home is the sounds and smells and feelings that have imprinted themselves so deeply that they allow us to finally realize it’s not the where but the who that gives home its true definition.
These two characters were the other’s perfect foil, proving that sometimes opposites do attract. Coming from different backgrounds, having entirely dissimilar relationships with their parents, and learning to accept each other’s differences rather than attempting to correct them, provided the basis for the conflict of the story’s plot. The story plays like a long beginning of the end, as the reader witnesses Cole’s emotional separation and struggle, through a series of notes to his friend, Jared.
The resolution to the conflict was touching and should be satisfying to the reader who loves the promise of a happily ever after. Rather than 5 kisses, I’d give it 5 tissues because I cried like a baby. And the last line of the book is nothing more than an evil device of torture because now we must wait for the next book to see what comes next.