Sonoran Heat

Title: Sonoran Heat
Author: Katrina Strauss
Publisher: Amber Allure
Genre: M/M contemporary romance
Length: 144 pages
Rating: 5 stars out of 5

A guest review by Jenre

Summary Review
A superb May to December romance which manages to effectively address the age issue whilst also providing a wonderful, believable romance.

THE BLURB

Tony is newly single, lonely, and stuck in the past. When he grabs a late-night meal at an old haunt, his trip down memory lane is derailed by gorgeous waiter Josh. Tony sees a chance for a fresh start with the twenty-one-year-old, but worries chasing a man half his age will lead to heartache. It’s hard to resist when Josh intrigues Tony on an intellectual level—and fires the landscaper’s libido hotter than the Arizona desert they call home.

Josh has goals. Digital design student by day, he waits tables at night, but his true dream is to paint. When he falls for Tony, he starts to rethink his plans and how the sexy older man might fit into them. But Tony’s recovering from a failed relationship, one that lasted nearly as long as Josh has been alive, and Josh must prove that in spite of his age and inexperience, his feelings are sincere.

As the desert nights heat up, Tony and Josh explore possibilities both in and out of the bedroom, but when each man faces a difficult choice, they must decide on the future. Whether that future is together, or separate, is a matter of reason versus the heart.

THE REVIEW

Katrina Strauss’ m/m books are auto-buys for me and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of this book. I’m generally on the fence about May to December romances as I’ve read my fair share of both great and poor examples. This time the theme worked really well and I was left feeling optimistic about the relationship between Tony and Josh.

Unable to sleep, middle-aged Tony ventures into a diner he hasn’t visited in years, not since his mis-spent youth. Whilst re-living the past, his eye is caught by the hot, young waiter, Josh. Hoping for a way to blow off steam, and flattered by Josh’s obvious attraction to his old bones, Tony waits until Josh’s shift has finished. However, it’s soon obvious that Josh is an intelligent man and looking for more than just a one night stand. Tony’s coming out of the break-up of a long term partnership and isn’t sure he’s ready for commitment again, but there’s something about Josh which makes Tony unable to forget him.

Those of you looking for an all out action, fast paced story are going to be disappointed with this book. The pacing is gentle, but not slow, and the focus is securely on the gradual development of the relationship between Josh and Tony. I was spellbound and could barely manage to put the book down as I followed Josh and Tony’s initial meet up and their slow path towards love. The story is in the third person from the alternating point of view of both heroes, which I have to admit is my favourite narrative style. Thus any problems and victories are seen from both perspectives and allowed a fully rounded view of the events of the book. It also meant that I could really get to know both characters as they became fully fleshed out with each turn of the page.

The main theme of the story is that of the problems associated with a May to December romance, and I was so glad to see this theme addressed in a mature and reasoned fashion. The pair work well as a couple, with Tony ready to kick back a little after his failed relationship, and Josh having a bit of an old head on young shoulders. At first the pair are just having a bit of fun, but as both realise that their relationship is moving away from just hot sex and towards something more permanent the worries set in. Tony is understandably worried about not only coming across as the male version of a cougar, but also how Josh could potentially be stuck with Tony as an old man when he’s still quite young, or that old age will lead to Josh leaving him. I liked how Tony’s friends, Jason and Keith, were used as a way of highlighting these problems through the book, and also how their reactions to Tony and Josh were realistic but managed not to make them the bad guys of the story. Josh has fewer worries, as I suppose befits his age. He has a young man’s habit of putting off thinking through problems which, again, was realistic and led to a certain amount of tension towards the end of the book. In fact if I have any criticism of the story it’s in the way that the resolving of Josh’s problems was handled, especially in the way he shuts Tony out. However, as it led to a certain amount of maturing on Josh’s part by the end of the book, I could forgive it.

Aside from the themes and the characterisation, the other part I liked about the book was how vividly the Sonoran setting is brought alive in the book. It’s a part of the world I know little about, and I loved many of the incidental details, particularly in relation to Tony’s job as a landscape gardener, which added to the richness of the setting. The landscape in particular, brought alive through Josh’s paintings, was vibrant and I could see why both Josh and Tony were passionate about where they live.

There were many other things I liked about the book too, particularly in the secondary characters of Josh’s friends and slacker Dylan, who deserves a whole book of his own, and the beautiful hot and tender sex scenes which managed to blow your socks off whilst retaining a high romance quotient.

This is one book which didn’t disappoint and I can highly recommend it to those who like May to December romance or who want to read a warm and affectionate romance between two very sympathetic heroes.