Author: J.D. Walker
Publisher: JMS Books
Length: 40 Pages
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: If you are looking for a read with not much depth, then you will enjoy this one. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Bennett “Ben” Pachowski is a bouncer at Throwbacks. He likes his job, though he gets tired of being thought of as more brawn than brain. He loves books, prefers to be romanced before sleeping with a man, and has a crazy feline companion named Bessie.
Ben’s favorite band, Rebel’s Ultimatum, plays at the club on weekends, giving him an eyeful of sexy bass player, Monty Mabuse. Ben is content to flirt — nothing more. He knows the kind of person Monty is, and commitment is not something the bass player is interested in.
When Monty resorts to something devious to get what he wants, it backfires, and Ben walks away. Before he goes on tour with his band, Monty finally gets Ben to talk to him, but if Monty really wants to have something serious with Ben, he’ll have to change his ways.
A little romance could go a long way.
Review: I love J.D. Walker. I usually really enjoy her stories, but I gotta be honest here—this one fell flat for me for several reasons. It’s a short read, a light read of just forty pages or so, and in that respect, it does have a full storyline encapsulated within that short of a timespan. But that’s what I love about Walker’s stories; they generally have a good plotline and she writes enough short stories that she knows how to make the pacing work. Unfortunately, for me, this one just didn’t.
Ben is a bouncer at the popular bar Throwbacks. Even though he has dual degrees in literature and psychology, people still assume he’s all brawn and no brain. Ben’s a romantic at heart, and refuses to sleep with just anybody—especially the sexy, promiscuous bass player of Rebel’s Ultimatum, a band that plays at the club on a regular basis. Ben likes to spend his free time reading to the elderly and teaching them how to dance at Mabel’s Retirement Home.
Monty Mabuse is the bass player for the up and coming Rebel’s Ultimatum. Fame has hit him fast and furious, and he’s determined to have the sexy bouncer before he goes on tour with his band—whether it’s through fair means or foul. Unfortunately Monty chooses the foul option, and the dub-con awkwardness that follows is painful to read. I will say that Monty uses the experience as a wakeup call to what he has become, and does a one-eighty in personality at this point. Trying to clean up his act and being worthy of Ben becomes a goal for him.
As I mentioned before, I didn’t prefer this story for several reasons. There is no chemistry between the main characters, and it feels like the story was forced somehow, like the plot was underdeveloped. Maybe if the story was longer, I would have had a chance to connect with the characters and they would have had a chance to connect with each other on a deeper level. The people felt wooden to me, like they were almost saying lines in the first rehearsal for a play instead of experiencing “real” life. Ben seems almost too good to be true, and his verbiage was stilted and preachy on occasion. And Monty was a bit of a stalker—I really couldn’t get past his early transgression (it bordered on rape to me) to like him in the short time I met him.
The ending is a little sappy. Nothing wrong with sappy. All HEA’s have an element of sappy. Be aware that there is little to no sex in the book, and the sex that is there is iffy in the consensual department. Overall, this was a short, light read about two men who are attracted, fall out with each other, then meet back up some time later and rekindle the original attraction. If you are looking for a read with not much depth, then you will enjoy this one. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
You can buy Romancing the Bouncer here:
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