Skipping Stones

Title: Skipping Stones
Author: D. J. Manly
Publisher: Amber Allure
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: Novel (46k words/140 pages)
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Aunt Lynn

One Sentence Review: A good, emotional book that teaches us once again that things are not always what they seem.

THE BLURB

Leo wants nothing more than to leave Paris, the City Of Love, to escape the memories of a disastrous affair. The artist is soured on love and down on his luck, and he doesn’t even have the money for a plane ticket.

Leo knew his best friend Mark understood heartbreak. When he phones Mark with his sad story, the man offers Leo the money to return to the U.S. and asks him to help out at a resort he co-owns with his own former lover, Reed.

Although Leo has never met Reed—the poster boy for heartbreaker of the century—he feels like he knows him, given the letters Mark wrote over the years, pouring out his heart about Bad Boy Reeds’ lecherous adventures and insensitivity. And Leo also can’t help but resent Reed. Not only had the guy repeatedly broken Mark’s heart, but he’d stood between Leo and Mark, preventing them from ever being together.

Now, Leo is convinced that he has Reed all figured out, but when the gorgeous, red-hot computer engineer unexpectedly comes home, Leo is completely unprepared for the man who supposedly raked Mark over the coals. And soon, everything gets turned upside down, which might make Leo’s recovery from a broken heart impossible this time around, plus destroy a long-time friendship in the process…

THE REVIEW

Skipping Stones is the first book by this author that I’ve read, one that I liked a lot. It’s a well-written, emotional story about pain, obsession, judgment, pre-conceptions and starting over. This review was difficult for me write because to accurately explain why I liked the book, I would need to give spoilers, which I won’t do, so as a result this may seem a bit disjointed.

Artist Leo learns that his Parisian lover of a year is married, leaving him brokenhearted, depressed and sworn off love. Tired of Paris and now completely broke, he turns to the one person who can fix it: his best friend Mark. Leo and Mark have known each other since they were kids. Not long after they both discovered they were gay, Leo fell head over heels for his friend, but the feelings weren’t returned as Mark wasn’t ready to commit to one person — until he met Reed, that is. Unfortunately, Mark knows well what it is like to have a broken heart; he has been living and desperately in love with Reed, a seeming jerk who takes Mark for granted and often leaves him alone for months at a time to travel around the world and carry on with other men. Even though he and Reed have never met, Leo hates him on Mark’s behalf based on the letters Mark has sent him over the years. Now coming to Leo’s rescue, Mark arranges a plane ticket for him back to the States and offers Leo a place to stay and do his art in exchange for some help around the small, secluded resort in Florida that he co-owns with Reed. Reed is off on one of his international work assignments, so it will be perfect. Not long after Leo arrives, however, so does gorgeous Reed and confusion sets in for Leo. Though the man is an enigma and acts like an asshole at times, it’s obvious that there is more to the story than Mark has told Leo. Tension of different kinds develops immediately between the three of them, and soon all of the relationships are on the line.

Skipping Stones is not a light and fun read; it’s a dramatic and emotional book — angst, delusion, depression, desperation, guilt, anger, jealousy, disappointment, hope and love all vie for the reader’s attention in a good way. Told in third-person mostly by Leo and, to a lesser degree, Mark, we get know the complex and flawed characters that make up the three men in the center of this tale that has several twists that left me guessing how it would end. I felt each of the protags was sympathetic for varying reasons — even Reed at his most unreadable. I liked Reed even though I was seeing him through Leo’s and Mark’s biased eyes, and I liked how he was with Mark; he could have been much less patient and tolerant with the other man based on their past. I suspected some things about the situation that ultimately turned out to be correct, and the saying that there are two sides to every story is well in play here, especially if the one side you are told is tainted by lies and delusions.

There are few secondary characters, but Adrian, the writer who is staying at the resort and becomes friendly with the three men is at the forefront. His inclusion helped with the hopeful HEA.

My only niggle: The first smexual encounter between Leo and Reed didn’t have them using condoms with a brief “I’m clean,” “So am I” exchange, which should have been an issue for Leo because at that point — and through much of the story, actually — he believes Reed is a “Mr. Good Fuck” man-slut.

OVERALL

I highly recommend Skipping Stones to those looking for an emotional rollercoaster and fans of this author.