I read in the introduction: A Novel Approach to Gay Romance. Introducing a line of romance novels written just for gay men...and I add: and women who like to read about men in love!
Lately I have read a lot of books or ebooks about manlove written by men: William Maltese, Bobby Michaels, Josh Lanyon, Matthew Haldeman-Time. I have to said that I like them all. I like their style, even if it's very different one from the other, and I ike their way to approach love between men. It's not true that romance is woman. Also men can love deeply and suffer the pain of love.
In Spare Parts, Dan is a 35 years old mechanics. He has had an hard life but now, he has managed to own six garages all around a little province town and life seems to go well. But a former friend is very jelaous of his success and begins to gossip about him: Dan is gay, he employes only young men (underage men), he is not a good mechanics... All false except the first thing: Dan is gay but he is also very lonely. So when he meets Trent, and mistakens him for an hooker, he hopes to have found a soul to share his life and if he can make something good for Trent giving him a chance to change his life... But Trent is not a hooker, he is only a young men (27 years old) with some money problems and a wanna-to-be photographer.
The story is pretty simple, but very well written. Even if there aren't unexpected twist and the story flows smoothly through a happily ever after ending, it's a very relaxing and enjoyable reading. It's very "romentic" indeed.
I finds strange the continuing underlying of the age difference between Dan and Trent. Eight years old is not so much in our age (never been I think) and if it is between a 27 years old and a 35 years old is highly acceptable. But maybe this id due to the fact that Dan is described as an "old" character, a man who has reached a moment in his life where he has to take some final decision. 35 years old!!! Help!!! I have only two years to spend in happiness and careless life?!? Joke apart, I like the interaction between the two.
Dan is a very good man. He is strong and caring. A man you'd like to have at your side (man or woman). He is also handsome and very physical in his love. Trent instead is still a wanna-to-be man. Maybe he is out from a troubled youth, and not having a father, but only a mother, has made him a bit spoilt, but not a nasty person. I think he is happy to lean on someone else. He need a fatherly figure in his life. And so here we have the relationship between the two: a man grown old too soon, and another man not enough grown. A perfect match.
This is the second book I read by Scott & Scott but I think not the last...
http://www.loose-id.net/prod-Romentics__Spare_Parts-591.aspx
Amazon: Spare Parts: A Romentics Novel
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle

Cover Art by Michael Breyette