Review: Will & Patrick Meet the Mob by Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths

Title: Will & Patrick Meet the Mob (Wake Up Married: Book Five)

Authors: Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths

Publisher: Self-Published

Pages/Word Count: 147 Pages

At a Glance: Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths have made this such a fun serial to follow—in all its soap opera dramatics and over-the-top antics and in watching our heroes slowly but surely inch toward something real.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Patrick has finally accepted that he’s in love with Will, but his newfound determination to do something about that runs up against his father-in-law’s mobster plans. Though just what those plans are have as yet to be determined. As far as Will and Patrick can tell, they consist of blowing through town, wreaking small havoc, and turning the Patterson family’s lives on end.

Will must face the truth about his family before he can fully come to terms with his feelings for Patrick. And Patrick has to decide if this whackadoodle world is something he truly wants to be part of forever.

Review: In this episode of Will & Patrick Wake Up Dense… Wait, no, that’s not right. To be fair, Dr. McGenius Loveypants has finally admitted he’s feeling all the feels for Will O’Slowontheuptake, after all. At least, to himself and his friend Jenny—although the first time doesn’t really count because she was anesthetized and unconscious, but still… He gets points for saying it anyway. Will, however…he’s still in the process of catching up on how he truly feels for Patrick, but with the help of his mob boss daddy (the foxy hotty with the questionable sense of humor), our goodhearted Will may very well be waking up and smelling the shmoopy. Now he just needs to trust it.

Will & Patrick Meet the Mob is the fifth installment in the “Wake Up” serial, and reads like a bridge book. This is the episode that crosses our couple over from the fighting their feelings stage and transitions them just a wee bit closer to their happily ever after. But, with a quick pitstop in the land of Daddy Issues. And boy, does Daddy have some issues—mostly in that he doesn’t know what funny is. Well, that and he’s probably a killing killer who kills people, but that’s to be expected when you’re in the mob biz. The surprise here, however, is his position on Will and Patrick’s marriage, the fake marriage that they’ve been trying so hard to convince everyone is real until they can find a loophole to end it. Mac Daddy Molinaro, it would seem, is quite capable of being observant while he’s also busy inspiring incontinence in others. Three cheers for dads and dark humor!

Will & Patrick Meet the Mob is Will’s book. At least to me it is, and here’s why: Ryan. No, Ryan doesn’t show up out of the blue to pee all over Will’s low-carb corn flakes again, but he’s significant nonetheless because Ryan is everything shitty about how Will sees himself. Why is this important in this installment? Because Will is finally beginning to display everything good Patrick has seen in Will from moment one—namely, his strength and courage. Will’s focus on Patrick and the desire to shelter and protect and take care of him has finally introduced Will to his own backbone (something Ryan had robbed him of), which is what gives Will pause when the temptation to drink invades. Patrick is why Will is finding the conviction to stand up for himself. And douchebaggy Ryan is the reason Will has become someone Patrick is fighting all of his own douchey instincts to fall in love with. So, there you have it: Ryan, in all of his buttfaced assy-ness, has played inadvertent matchmaker to our spouses.

Some health issues arise in this episode as well, which sprinkles the drama with a dash of anxiety, and then tops it all off with the requisite cliffhanger at the end—the one we’ve all been waiting for since Will and Patrick woke up in a state of unholy matrimony. As this is the book that grabs the beginning and the end and draws them together, there is less a feeling of significant events happening here than there is an overall feeling of significant growth in the characters and in the connection between these would-be husbands. Now it’s time to see what said cliffhanger means for Will and Patrick.

Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths have made this such a fun serial to follow—in all its soap opera dramatics and over-the-top antics and in watching our heroes slowly but surely inch toward something real. If you’ve wanted to start this series but hate waiting between releases, I can’t say that I blame you—instant gratification is always better—but now’s the time to get caught up. The grand finale is imminent, and we already know it promises to be happy.

You can buy Will & Patrick Meet the Mob here: