The Best Man by L.A. Witt

[reviews_and_ramblings]

The Best Man was a story that started as a comedy and ended as a drama, and that was probably the most unexpected, but nice, surprise of the story.

When at the beginning of the story Jon receives the “bad” news about the marriage of his ex-boyfriend Craig, together with the offer to be the best man at such wedding, I was totally expecting for this story to turn into a gay “my best-friend’s wedding” type of romance. My expectation were: a) that Jon was willing to do anything to conquering back Craig and b) that in trying to do that he would have fallen in love for Liam, the “other man” who was helping him.

So when Jon goes out to find solace and he meets Liam, I was thinking, good the first step in my plan is done, now go on with the next; except that it was MY plan and not Jon or Liam’s plan. After the first night they spent together, Jon is really starting to heal from the breakup with Craig, and he is less and less interested in what Craig will do or whom he will marry. Of course while me, as a reader, is witnessing to that, Craig is still unaware that he is no more the main interest in Jon’s life. That first night Craig didn’t come out like a very nice character: while he was kind, and apparently interested in Jon’s good, he was really uncaring in asking him to be his best man, above all since he well knew that Jon was not over their story. And I had the feeling that he felt pleased by the fact that Jon was still mooning over him, his suggestion to Jon to go out and get laid was only a scene since he wasn’t really expecting for Jon to follow his advice.

Jon’s character, and his evolution from heart-broken ex-boyfriend to new-lover has an average pace, meaning that it’s not sudden but neither so slow to be boring; the reader has enough proofs that the story is conceivable, and that Jon’s feelings are true: Liam is not a rebounding love.

In all of this Liam’s character was a bit neglected until more or less half the book. He did an evolution like Jon, but his was slightly different: it seemed like more Jon was gaining strength and more Liam was losing his. He was also the reason why the story shifted from comedy to drama, but all in all it was a good thing for him, because in this way he gained a deepness that if he was the usual hot-bartender he would have not.

On a side note, The Best Man is set in the same “world” as The Distance Between Us, meaning that both Kiernan from The Distance Between Us than Liam from The Best Man are bartenders in a gay night club Wilde’s that apparently is notorious for its hotties.

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Amazon Kindle: The Best Man
Publisher: Champagne Books (June 2, 2010)

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Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey