Author: Isobel Starling
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 141 Pages (Kindle)
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance:
Reviewed By: Sammy
Blurb: 1 wedding, 2 best men, one hell of a love story!
Declan Ramsay’s brother Oliver was marrying Annabelle Aiken at a fairy tale Castle on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland. The bride and groom decided, so that he didn’t feel left out, Annabelle’s gay younger brother Sam Should share the best man duties with Declan.
Declan had never met the kid who was to be his joint best man.
Sam Aiken was abroad, working as an interpreter and finishing his studies. He wouldn’t meet Declan until a few days before the wedding, so the best men communicated and planned their speech by email for more than a year.
But on meeting Sam Aiken, Declan is surprised to realise the kid isn’t a kid at all, but a tall, blond and athletic young man. Declan is sure he’s straight, so he’s alarmed by the ferocious attraction he feels for Sam. And as the attraction is reciprocated, the events at Dunloch Castle change everything Declan has ever believed about himself.
But is Samuel Aiken all that he appears to be?
Review: Nearly a year in the planning and now two brothers are finally meeting—one from the groom’s side and the other from the bride. Declan is a bit of a perfectionist. He likes his life orderly and as a result he is still single, having never been able to meet a woman that strikes his fancy for more than one or two dates. He’d like to think he might just be a confirmed bachelor—until he meets Samuel Aiken in the flesh. For almost a year these two have been corresponding via email and discussing their duties as best men with each other. It has been a remarkably easy conversation and left both of them eager to meet the other. But these two men are like oil and water, and the strange attraction that began online blossoms into full hate/love feelings on sight. While Declan can only feel irritated by the easygoing Samuel, it is his growing lusty thoughts about the younger man that disturb him the most. Surely Declan is a straight ladies’ man, as he has always believed himself to be! Or is he? No sooner does Declan discover the answer to that question than Samuel is sent off by his father on yet another mysterious assignment, leaving Declan to question whether there was ever anything between the two of them at all.
I am pretty sure I have just added author Isobel Starling to my auto-buy list. In this, the first of a burgeoning trilogy of stories, As You Wish catapults this author into the m/m arena with a solid bang. The dialogue is witty, the plot mysterious and tantalizing, and the connection between her two MCs is just delicious. There was such a deep connection between Declan and Samuel almost immediately. Their love/hate reactions to one another were neatly juxtaposed to the sizzling lustful feelings being in proximity provoked in both of them. Granted, once Declan wrapped his mind around having sex with a man his barriers probably fell a bit too rapidly, but the author wisely offset that by making the two men so easy with each other, so comfortable, by drawing on their online correspondence history to give a solid foundation to their new relationship.
With the added mystery of what exactly Samuel’s father held over him, which empowered him to send the young man on one dangerous assignment after another, you had the near perfect combination of sexual romance and tension filled subplot. Then, add in a surprising ending that leaves you reeling and hungering for the next installment, and you have an amazing novel that leaves the reader begging for more. However, it was Declan and Samuel and their delightful interactions that kept this novel humming along. These two just clicked from the beginning, and the more intimate they became with each other, the more delightful the story grew. From the cornball movie quotes to the surprisingly tender confessions to each other, As You Wish evolved into a gorgeous romance that resonated with this reviewer long after the last page.
You can download As You Wish FREE here:
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