To the Highest Bidder by Kate Steele

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a very nice novella, it's a bit sexy and naughty but mostly it's romantic and sweet. Ben is a bookstore owner (and also for this chosen career I would have found him nice), but he is not the classical library mouse; he is young, 26 years old, pretty and gay. Apparently he has also no problem to find companionship when he wants, but Ben is now looking only for true love. Even if he has had a bad experience in the past, he still believe in love. Ben's lover left him since Ben wasn't willing to have an open relationship; in reaction to the dumping, or maybe to prove to himself that his idea of committed love was stupid, Ben spent months sleeping around, only to awake one day realizing that it wasn't what he wanted. Now Ben prefers to be alone if the man he has in front is nothing serious. But don't get me wrong, Ben is not some hermit, it's less than one year that he took that decision, so maybe, if fate didn't help him, it wouldn't have been long that he maybe reconsider.

Anyway Ben's best friend, Becca, decides to give him a special birthday present, a lunch date with Ben's favorite television star, Mitch. Mitch is really gorgeous and on screen he seems also very nice and with a deep personality. But the day of the appointment, Mitch is sullen and rude, and Ben leaves thinking that it's only true what they say of the stardom. This is probably the best part of the novella: it would have been simple to write a Cinderfella like story, where mousy Ben falls in love, with the big star Mitch, and he is reciprocated. And obviously, being Mitch famous and wealthy, it would have been simple to make him also the strong partner in the relationship.

Instead Mitch is, like often actors are, a man with a lot of complex, with a poor childhood and youth (poor of feelings not of money) and who, like Ben, was burned by love. Mitch is probably acting in life like he is acting on screen: he is trying to avoid some inner questions since he doesn't like the answer. His only long term relationship was with a man, and it was also his only same sex relationship, and it didn't go well. So now Mitch is having only female partners (and few up to all), telling himself that he is bisexual and that he is not attracted to men. For me instead, Mitch's conscience knows that he can fall in love only with a man, and so it avoids to be involved with one so it's not possible to break his heart again.

So there is nice contraposition between Ben and Mitch: Ben is the one with the low profile job, but he is also the one with a better self-esteem and comfortable with his sexuality; Ben has also a supportive family and circle of friends, where Mitch is practically alone. On the other hand, when they are in bed, it's always Mitch who plays the top; more, when it's the moment to be serious and real with their relationship, despite his sexuality issues, it's Mitch who faces the situation with more steadiness and certainty.

To the Highest Bidder is a story that gives more than expected, with two nice characters, very well developed; it has also the type of closing scene I love, where the author gives a glimpse on the couple after their happily ever after.

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-To_the_Highest_Bidder-821.aspx

Amazon Kindle: To the Highest Bidder

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[yachay.livejournal.com]

I loved this story! After seeing your review about this on LibraryThing, and now here, I got this urge to read it again. :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

It's a nice story. Pity that is only a novella, I'm quite fond of the show business setting, I wouldn't mind to read more. Elisa