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reviews_and_ramblings
I don’t know if I was particularly in the mood for this type of story, but I had the strong impression that L.B. Gregg is going better story after story, and another thing that I noticed is that she is able to play with plots and themes completely different always remaining in the same small town, Smithfield (that story after story is starting to feel like a paradise I’d like to discover and move to). This is the time of a may/december story tinted with a bit of Cinderfella. Nice, romantic plot and nothing challenging you would say, and you are just ready to sit down and enjoy your ordinary romance, when a body literally pops out from the ground… yeaks! And now the story seems more the plot of an Hitchcock movie, a bit of “Rear Window” (the man who cannot leave his house and does all the investigating from inside) and a bit of “Vertigo” (the man who has a condition that forbid him to do something that is vital, for him and for the ones he loves). But then the author dresses it with a small and cute puppy, and with some hot sex scene (even one under the shower), and the romance goes well along the mystery.
For me that is not an expert, the mystery plot was good: basically the dead body was a man that everyone could have killed, from the most obvious suspects, like Holden, the crazy writer suffering of agoraphobia, and Adam, the cute, and young, gardener, to Mrs. Henderson, the perfect housekeeper, or Father David, who obviously doesn’t like Holden’s lifestyle. And collecting suspects, the author is also collecting a cast of supporting characters that is one better of the other, above all since apparently they end all for living with Holden in a mausoleum that seems to have more bedroom than doors.
Holden apparently is healing from a broken heart, a betrayal and an embarassing situation; his excuse to avoid people is that he is suffering from agoraphobia and he cannot leave the house. I think that he is simply avoiding contacts, and I didn’t feel like he was really upset upon loosing John, the deceiving lover. His nestling in his native home (nestling and hiding) for me is more a way to go back to his roots, trying to understand what was wrong with his life and not making the same mistake as his parents. Plus he is probably feeling lonely, without roots, and finally setting in a place is a way for the few dear ones he has to come to him, to console him, but at the same time, to recreate the family he has lost (first his older brother in an accident, then his parents, finally his lover).
Adam is the black sheep of the town, the son of the drunk driver who killed a man, the young boy with the scarlet letter on his chest even before he had the chance to deserve one. But Adam is innocent, in a way that is almost disarming, and all he wants is to be given a chance. Yes Holden is older, and wealthier, and this is probably a relationship that will raise eyebrows of the conformists, but if in the end no one is hurting anyone, who cares? Adam needs a safe place, Holden can give him one; Holden needs the strength of the youth that is Adam, Adam is willing to share.
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/romance/male-male-erotica/in-and-out/prod_321.html
Buy Here
Amazon Kindle: In and Out (Men of Smithfield)
Series: Men of Smithfield
1) Gobsmacked: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/65759
2) Happy Ending: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/89496
3) Cover Me: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1146122.html
4) In and Out
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
