Bitchie's Books

I let this marinate while I slept, hoping my perspective would change, but it hasn't. This was just bad. Not the writing, the writing was good. The premise was good. Out gay guy travels to the middle east on business, meets closeted military man, angst, sex, and romance ensues. Sounds perfect, right?Wrong!Let's start though, with what I did like. As I said, the writing was solid. There are so many poorly written and edited books out there these days that I always feel the need to point out when something is decently edited and written. I liked Jay well enough (although I don't really feel I got to know him much), and I really enjoyed Jackie. I liked the bar element.What I didn't like. First a bit of WTF, on my part anyway. Would a company really send a bunch of young girls to a country in the middle east simply to dance around and act sexy, to sell beer? It seems really risky to me, but maybe the place they were wasn't so bad as other places you read about?Then there is Damon. God, I hated this man. He had NO redeeming qualities. At first, I liked him.I thought he was a nice guy. He talked with Jay a bit on their first meeting, seeming genuinely interested. But then the next time they saw each other, he was a cold jerk, totally ignoring Jay. Ok, I can kinda get that. Closeted man meets a guy he likes, then freaks out a bit, responds by ignoring the guy he likes. I GET that. I could totally overlook the ignoring parts, so long as he made up for it later.Ok, now we get a nice fat spoilery chunk of review, so don't read on if you don't want to read, in detail, why I hated Damon and don't buy this relationship at ALL.But he didn't. Not at all. By their third meeting, Damon is STILL acting like an ass, only this time he is waiting for Jay after work. He offers to take him home, drags him into his car, takes him to a dark alley, and proceeds to pull out his dick and order Jay to suck it. WTF? Seriously?? And because Jay finds the guy hot, and DID like him on their first meeting, he actually does it. Seriously? He also lets Damon fuck him, bareback, on the hood of the car, in an alley in a middle east country, where I would imagine the punishment if caught would be quite severe.To add to Damon's douchiness, he cums, pulls out, and he's done, leaving poor Jay there, totally unsatisfied.Jay is understandably pissed, but then he lets it happen again! Ends up in his hotel with Damon, gets Damon off, and once again, Damon has a freak out, and leaves Jay hanging. WTF, seriously now.I don't even get what brought about the change in Damon from douche nozzle to supposed misunderstood nice guy who's afraid of love. Hell, I didn't really get why he was SO bad in the first place, something about fucking guys like that so he didn't get close and fall in love?They had a run in with local police (because Damon is once again trying to get Jay to blow him in an alley, BTW), got handcuffed, escaped, got shot at, Damon freaked out and acted NOTHING like a seasoned military man, and then suddenly the next day, he's all sad and contrite, and kissy face and "fuck me" when just the day before, he freaked out over a rim job, and kept demanding that Jay would NOT be fucking him, don't go sticking anything in MY ass buddy(oh god I hate when someone calls a love interest buddy). I really don't get the turnaround, or what caused it.So Damon runs hot and cold, but even worse than just a little chilly, he's a downright prick. He has no redeeming qualities. None. Nada. Zilch. He's just a guy who thinks it's ok to drag the old dick out and demand a blow job, and give nothing in return. And Jay likes this why?ETA: OMG I forgot about the ashtray! More Damon douchiness. He's in Jay's hotel room, getting yet another blow job,(although I think he idd halfass return that favor this time, until he freaked out that Jay touched his asshole) when he proceeds to light up a fucking ciggie, and put the ashtray on Jay's back! And though a bit miffed, Jay just keeps right on sucking!To be fair, Jay does feel a fair amount of angst and confusion over WHY he likes Damon, why he even gets off a bit on the way Damon treats him. Then, finally, near the 80% mark of the story, Damon starts acting a tiny bit human. He apologies for his behavior, and explains it a bit. I didn't buy his explanation, but whatever.Then Jay goes home to England, Damon goes off to Iran for a war I've never heard of. Cut to two years later, we find Jay and Jackie in Florida, when Jay hears Damon's trademark "hey, buddy", and the story ends. I have no idea if these guys will have a HEA. We are led to believe that they do, but how? Is Damon out of the military? Is he moving to England to be with Jay? Will Jay even like Damon as a nice guy, and not the guy who demands blowjobs in dark alleys? I mean, that's what he fell for, right? And I really don't think that's who Damon would be to someone he really cared about.Writing this review really saddens me, because I did like the other book I read by this author. This story had all the earmarks of a story I really love, but the character of Damon just totally ruined it for me. I couldn't find one single thing to like about him, and so I couldn't be happy that Jay (maybe?) ended up with him. It makes me think that Jay is just a pushover who takes what he can get, when he really wasn't presented that way, at all.