Title: Smart Ass #2: Pressure Point
Author: Amber Green & L.B. Gregg
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre: M/M contemporary romance
Length: Two Novellas
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
A guest review by Jenre
Summary Review
A print version of two previously released ebook novellas by Amber Green and L.B. Gregg. The L.B. Gregg story is good and worth reading, but the Amber Green story is too superficial to recommend.
THE GOLDEN BOYS BY AMBER GREEN
THE BLURB
With his easy laugh and knowing eyes, Jell grew up street–while I was raised to be a pillar of society. Now we’re half naked and escaping a psychiatric facility. We’re lost, cold, and being shot at. And did I mention half naked?
THE REVIEW
One thing the struck me when I started reading this novella was that, as far as I could recall, I hadn’t read an m/m book or story where both the heroes were black men. I was interested to see how well the author would put across the black culture, especially as one of the heroes, Jell, is a rapper and immersed in that dangerous culture of drugs, women and posturing.
As we begin the story, the other hero, Ethan is in trouble. Not only has he recently flunked out of medical school and now following the ‘lesser’ career in nursing, but he’s also come out to his strict religious family. Ethan is approached by his uncle, who is in the FBI and asked whether he would be willing to help with a short operation to persuade his old schoolmate (and feature of many of Ethan’s schoolboy fantasies) Jell, to escape from the detox centre where he’s currently hiding and instead tell the FBI what has caused his sudden fright and flight. Things don’t go as planned though and soon Jell and Ethan are on the run and fighting to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.
I think that my main problem with this story stemmed from the amount of stuff the author has crammed into a short 75 page novella. There’s Ethan’s problems with his family, his sense of failure over flunking out of medical school and his new career in nursing, his feelings for Jell, his attempt to persuade Jell to talk to the FBI, a daring escape, an action sequence at the end, sex and a HFN end. Alongside this are Ethan’s parents who want to ‘convert’ him back to being straight, several of Ethan’s aunts and uncles, Jell’s career as a rapper, Jell’s problems with his girlfriend and her sister and the question of how Jell and Ethan can make a go of things when Jell has such a high profile heterosexual job. The net result of these characters, themes and ideas crammed into such a short format was that nothing was dealt with on more than a superficial level. Many of Ethan’s problems are given a paragraph of space before moving onto something else, and I thought it a shame that some of the ideas, such as Ethan’s parents social snobbery over those who are considered “street”, or Ethan’s feelings over no longer being a doctor, or Jell’s career as a rapper, could have been explored in much greater depth.
Another part which left me scratching my head a little was why Ethan was asked to take part in an FBI operation when he has no training, no clue what to do and only the fact that he used to be friends with Jell before he became a rapper as qualifications for the job. It was unrealistic to say the least, as well as foolhardy and dangerous. Would the FBI really work in this way? I’m not sure they would and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough for this part.
The plot moves swiftly and I liked the character of Ethan. Some parts of the story were humourous and had a ‘mad-cap’ feel about it, but other than that this was just too rushed, too lacking in depth for me to wholeheartedly recommend it.
Grade: 3 Stars.
HAPPY ENDING BY L.B. GREGG
THE BLURB
Seth is difficult and damaged and overwhelmed, but a good man who’s given up on happy endings. David is everything he doesn’t want, but might just be exactly what Seth needs.
THE REVIEW
This, the second book in LB Gregg’s Men of Smithfied series, begins just as explosively as the last book. Our hero Seth is stressed. He has a high powered job, plus he is grieving for his twin sister, who died of cancer three months prior to the start of the book, and who left him the guardian of her six year old daughter, Molly. When we first meet him he is waiting for his weekly massage. His usual masseur is not able to come and the replacement is David, who is so skilled that Seth becomes rather *ahem* overheated, much to David’s complete outrage. Later that day, Seth sees David again, waiting tables at a bar/restaurant. There’s attraction but also antagonism between them as they try to hook up, sort out Seth’s many misconceptions and deal with ex-lovers, stalkers and Molly’s biological father.
I liked Seth, really liked him. He was, to be honest, a bit of a bastard. When we meet him at the beginning he seems your typical selfish Alpha male, but he has also has a number of things going for him. Firstly, he’s trying his best to look after Molly, even whilst trying to cope with his own grief. He’s endearingly clueless about how to look after children and treats Molly a bit like a mini adult, but I liked how he really did care for her and wanted what was in her best interests, even if it didn’t tally with his own. Secondly, he genuinely loved his sister and grieves her loss. He spent the last few months of his sister’s life caring for her at the expense of a long term relationship with someone he loved. Finally, he’s honest and upfront with people. He doesn’t mince his words, which sometimes makes him seem abrupt, but I liked how he wasn’t prepared to lie or hide the truth. David wasn’t so clearly defined. In fact he came across as a bit too good to be true and even his inexplicable temper tantrums weren’t enough to change the fact that he was rather too perfect. However, I did understand that David was supposed to be the polar opposite to Seth and therefore balance him out.
Overall, this was a fast paced read, full of LB Gregg’s trademark humour and wit. If I have any complaints it’s that there was a little too much crammed into this short novella and as a result the ending was rather rushed, even if I did see it coming pages before it happened. Having said that, I read this compulsively from start to finish and was satisfied when I closed the book. I have to admit that this is the weakest of the Men of Smithfield books but it was still a good read and I would recommend it.
Grade: 4 Stars.
Oh dear. I have that Amber Green story on my reader…
Hi Chris
You may enjoy it more than I did. The writing was good, but there was just too much going on.
Great review, Jen! I had to nod in recognition — not over the stories themselves which I haven’t read yet (but I’m looking forward to doing so), but that novella thing.
More and more, I’m seeing authors harming their stories because they’re trying to force what should be a novel into a novella length or even a novelette length. So they either cram in too much and treat it superficially or they truncate the conflict and characters.
I doubt the publishers are forcing them to do this because, hey, you can put a more expensive price tag on a novel. Though I see the marketing plan here and it’s a good one — publish these two authors together in a volume and you cross-pollinate the two readerships (for a weird botany metaphor, ha, ha!)
But do authors in general just not recognize when the idea needs to stretch out? Or are they writing to some kind of internal schedule where they want “x” number of new releases per time period and novellas are faster to churn out? It makes me very curious.
Hi Val
I can’t answer your questions, cos I don’t know myself. Some writers are just adept at being able to structure a novella length piece and others aren’t. In the case of the Amber Green story, I felt that there was a lot which could have been missed out or streamlined so that the story focused on the main events without muddying the waters with lots of extra info which, when it came down to it, wasn’t actually necessary. Either that or the story could have been longer with the focus on character rather than action and that would have worked too, plus given space to really flesh out Ethan and Jell.
That’s all my supposition though because the story wasn’t written in that way and I can only view things as a reader, not an author or editor. I also have no idea whether there was a word limit on these stories or what the author’s intentions were whilst writing. I can only view the end product and make my judgement on that.
It does make you ponder though :).
I am usually disappointed when I read a novella because 1) there just isn’t enough “time” to flesh it out or 2) they cram everything and the kitchen sink into it. Either way, the plot and timing of the story suffers and I’m generally kicking myself for wasting money and time, esp. when I *know* better!!
But some authors I buy no matter what and L.B. Gregg is one of ’em. I believe you can get her story as a stand alone, which I prefer because anthologies tend to piss me off since there’s usually 1 maybe 2 authors I want to read out of them.
Thanks for listening to me gripe after a crappy Friday! 🙂
Hi Sherry
I first read the LB Gregg as a stand-a-lone too. She’s one of my autobuy authors. You’re right that sometimes it’s best to be able to choose one story by an author rather than buy an anthology – in the case of this book the two authors were put together so that they could be published in print.
It would be nice, now that LB has finished the MoS series if she could have a print copy of books 1 & 2 and then 3 & 4 together – a bit like Jet Mykles did with her Heaven Sent series.
Hope your Saturday was better – thank goodness for weekends, eh? 🙂