Book Review: Floodgates by Mary Calmes

Reviewed by Susan65

Title: Floodgates
Author: Mary Calmes
Heroes: Cord Nolan and Tracy Brandt
Genre: M/M Contemporary
Length: 234 Pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: March 3, 2014
Available at: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads & Booklikes

Blurb: Tracy Brandt considers himself a lucky man. He has a wonderful family, good friends, and a dependable job. His love life, however, features a cheating ex who, though out of the house, is not yet out of the picture—with a past that just might get Tracy killed.

Homicide inspector Cord Nolan wants nothing more than to show his best friend’s little brother that he’s a reliable man, but to do that he’ll have to get Tracy to look past the player he used to be. It’ll be a tough sell; reputation is everything, and Cord’s is tarnished by his past indiscretions.

Tracy and Cord have spent five years trying to suffocate their fiery attraction under a blanket of grudging antagonism. When Tracy finds himself with a target on his back, Cord finally has the chance to ride to the rescue and break through the dam of Tracy’s reserve. But he’d better be careful: if Cord is breaking the floodgates to wash away the past, he’s going to have to hold tight to Tracy to make sure they’re still standing when the tumult recedes.

Review:

I really loved this one. What appears to bug some readers is actually very attractive to me. I love drama and angst and asshole ex-boyfriends and the whole shitstorm they stir up…and Breckin caused a massive shitstorm in Floodgates. What a grade A asshole…but one I felt a strange connection to. I think it was because we didn’t just get the gratuitous and ambiguous ex-boyfriend backdrop, no, we got to meet him and see why Tracy fell in love with him. So yeah, he was an asshole and I hated many of his actions, but I still liked the guy. Sue me!

But the star of the show was Tracy. He and his best friend Matt were easily my two favorite characters. Their exchange during the car accident was brilliant. That was the scene that let me know that this was going to be a winner. Tracy was absolutely hilarious. He gave as good as he got and would flick you off just as soon as he was to give you a hug and a kiss. He was real and I loved him.

Now Cord, he was confusing to me at first. I thought he was the bigger asshole between him and the cheating ex boyfriend. I even had to go back and reread the blurb to make sure I had my main characters straight. But, once you really get to know him, and get at the truth, you just fall head of heels for the big, romantic, pushy, and possessive lug. By the end I put him the “dreamy” category.

So now we have my opinions on the main guys and a sidekick. But this story is also crammed full of awesome and amazing (and some not so amazing) secondary characters. The people were just so authentic to me, and that really draws me in. There is also a mystery and one that takes a couple twists and turns I didn’t expect. I was wrong with both of my choices as to who was the bad guy and that’s just awesome. Predictable I said, but nope, I was wrong, twice and I own it!

I won’t be surprised to see reviews all over the place on this story. No doubt some will hate it and others, like me, will love it. I had two dislikes in the midst of all that love and one was Celia…hated her for a multitude of reasons (one being that she was a skanky home-wrecking bitch and still won…hated that) and two the ending felt a little rushed. That may have been because the story before that last chapter flowed at a nice steady pace but the ending just zoomed by with a lot of stuff happening. I would have liked a couple more chapters, but then again I am greedy that way. J

Overall Impression: I Loved It

*I purchased my own, personal copy of this book for review.*