So, it’s really no big secret that I find Matty diLorenzo and his big, burly lover Vic Braunson utterly shmooptastic. In “me-speak” that means their relationship is like a milk chocolate outside with a sweet, creamy, marshmallowy center, and I just want to curl up under a blanket and gorge myself on them because, really, it makes me happy. Yes, they are the Mallomars of my fictional romance—gooey and delicious and I just want to eat them up.
The five books in J.M. Snyder’s V series, which is an offshoot of the Powers of Love series, are slice-of-life vignettes that not only focus on each of the strange superpowers Vic inherits every time he and Matt make love, but also focus on the everyday things this couple, like any couple, might consider—everything from the decision to get a pet to confirming their bond by making a formal commitment to each other.
Book four, The V in Virtue, and book 5, The V in Vulnerable, follow the boys through an agonizingly long and celibate week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, then goes straight into a robbery at gunpoint that sends Vic to the rescue.
At some point along the way in their relationship, Matt decided it would be a good idea to abstain from sex for the week between the holidays, then to celebrate at the stroke of midnight on December 31 by making love, in honor of the anniversary of his and Vic’s first time together. Oh, it has all the earmarks of a truly romantic gesture—until roughly day three of no sex, at which point it starts to feel a whole lot more like Hell Week than the holidays. But, of course, the wait ends up being more than worth it, even if midnight finds them at a party at Roxie’s place and Vic has to use his super-strength to guarantee them a little bit of privacy so they can ring in the New Year in their own way.
The series has been a sweet and shiny lead up to the “with this ring” portion of the program, and finally Matt settles on the perfect time and place in which to find the tokens that will symbolize and announce to the world their bond with each other. Unfortunately, some would-be robbers also settle on the exact time and jewelry store that Matty does, and a hostage situation quickly sucks all the fun right out of ring shopping. Well, that and the fact that Roxie also invited herself along on the excursion.
A phone call from Officer Kendra, Vic’s friend on the Richmond police force, alerts Vic that Matty’s car is parked outside of the jewelry story where all the action is going down, and Vic rushes to the rescue in his city bus, using his latest superpower—the ability to create mirror images of himself—to thwart the criminals and collect his reward from his lover: the perfect ring and a solemn vow to love each other forever.
I’m not sure if book five is the final book in the V series, because the end felt very much like a ceremony of two, a communion between the only two people who really matter, but that doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t like to see the Full Monty, with Roxie and Kendra playing “best men” to these two lovable grooms.
Buy the V series HERE.