Guest Reviewed by Morgan
Title: Rainbow Over Cedarwood
Author: Megan Slayer
Series: Single Father Society #3
Heroes: Ashley Willis/Colt Harrison
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 121 Pages
Publisher: Loose Id
Release Date: September 7, 2015
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads
Blurb: The moment Ashley gave up looking for the right man, fate showed up in the form of restaurateur, Colt Harrison. Sexy never looked this good.
Ashley Willis didn’t think he was interested in joining the dating pool…that is until he catches a look at Colt. The sexy diner owner makes him hot all over and has him thinking all sorts of dirty thoughts. But Ashley has to worry about more than his sex drive–he’s a single dad. What goes on in his life affects his son. Will Ashley play it safe or find the love he deserves with Colt?
Colt’s been happily single for the last few years. He likes his complications to stay at the diner. Then he meets Ashley. The geeky art teacher is everything he’s dreamed of having in his bed. Will the fact that Ashley’s a single father be the deal-breaker or will the naysayers in Cedarwood break up this couple before they get a chance to find love?
Review: Ashley is a single father. He helped out his BFF by getting her pregnant and then ends up raising their child when she dies. He’s determined to do the right thing by his son and yet struggles with being himself. He lives in conservative Cedarwood and teaches art at the high school there. He wants to be out and proud but worries about the repercussions.
As part of his determination to be true to himself he joins an LGBT group. When the group meets at Colt’s diner, Colt and Ashley strike up conversation that leads to dating and more.
The town of Cedarwood is determined to run the gays out of town and Colt and Ashley get caught up in the cross fire. Fortunately they have friends to help.
**
I haven’t read this author before and one of the things I love about reviewing books is getting the opportunity to explore new authors. I loved the premise: a group of single gay dads supporting each other in a small town. I love geeky MCs and add in art teacher – oo la la! I was hooked. But…
I wasn’t impressed.
I didn’t always understand the motivations of the MCs. Colt tells us repeatedly that guys like Ashley don’t do it for him, but something about Ashley does, but we don’t know what. Colt is also determined not to jump into a relationship but suddenly he’s pushing Ashley into one. Colt doesn’t like kids but he wants Ashley to bring his son on all their dates.
On the one hand, I can appreciate when characters change, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for all of Colt’s huge changes of opinion.
Ashley just seemed a bit weak to me. He went along with Colt, went along with his mother, went along with the group’s plans, he went along with his BFF. I didn’t get a good impression of what Ashley really wanted so I didn’t really connect with him very well.
I thought the group of townies who tried to destroy Colt’s diner was way over the top. They came from out of left field, starting with some gay slurs, then on to picketing Colt’s diner then on to armed robbery? Nothing about it made much sense to me.
So, by the end of the book, I was really not very invested in Colt and Ashley’s relationship because I never saw what drew them to one another. I also saw lots of reasons for them to stay apart, but not much to keep them together in the long run.
As I said, this is a new author to me, and I never assume that all books by that author are the same, so I will definitely give her another try, but this one did not impress me.
Overall Impression: It was okay, but not good
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for a fair and honest review.*
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