reviews_and_ramblings | Close to Me (Blue Ruin 2) by Katrina Strauss

I should confess, I was uncertain. Even if I liked a lot Blue Ruin 1, I don't like very much menages (even if they are M/M/M menages), and so when I saw the new cover of Blue Ruin 2 I was perplexed (even is it's a wonderful cover by the very good cover artist P.L. Nunn): I will like this new ones like the previous ones? And the answer is yes.

Close to Me is a litlle less yaoi then Blue Ruin 1, and maybe because Blue, the uke and pet of the first book, in this one is growing and is forming a own personality apart from his seme and master Derek.

After Blue was kidnapped in the first book, Derek is worrying for him a bit much; he also restrains himself during lovemaking and treats Blue like a porcelain doll. This is not something Blue can accept and after proving to Derek that he can still hold on thier pleasure/pain games in the bedroom, he wants also to prove him that he can be independent. This leads to him returning school to obtain his GED. And here he meets again Cameron.

Cam was Blue's nemesis at high school. He is the boy who always beat Blue, sometime with severe physical consequences for the smaller guy. But now Cam seems a different guy, and he wants to apologize. Worst he wants to be with Blue, since he has finally admitted to be gay and that all his violence in the past was only a way to hide his feelings toward Blue.

Blue is torn. He loves Derek, he has also vowed a commitment to the man, but he can't deny his feelings for Cam. He has long admitted that even if the boy treated him like a punching ball, he was drawn by him in the past. And now he has the chance to be with him. Don't forget that Derek was Blue first man, and Blue is a almost naivee 19 years old guy, where Derek is a 30 years old man with a very long lived past. I think Blue's uncertainity is very understandable, and also Derek's reaction at first is so: he doesn't want to share Blue, let alone leave him go. So what can he do to keep the boy with him?

As I said "Close to me" is more romance than yaoi. The seme/uke relationship is less strong and also the master/pet ones. Blue is growing, and doing that he is shortining the distance between him and Derek, if not in age for sure in experience. But Blue is a clever guy and he knows how to do it right. Still it's tender to see him act like the teenager he is, sharing a kiss while eating an icepop.

I also have to make my compliments to Katrina Strauss to have written a menage that it's not really a true ones, since the main couple maintains its integrity and closeness, and above all a menage that I, who don't like this type of relationship, have read with pleasure and also enjoyed.

http://www.loose-id.net/detail.aspx?ID=707

Amazon Kindle: Blue Ruin 2: Close to Me
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (April 15, 2008)

Series: Blue Ruin
1) Some Kind of Stranger: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/221831.html
2) Close to Me

Waiting Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=waiting+reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

Cover Art by P.L. Nunn