Lord of a Thousand Steps (Kristin’s Review)

Title: Lord of a Thousand Steps (Love in Laguna #4)
Author: Tara Lain
Publisher: Dreamspinner
Release Date: August 31, 2016
Genre(s): Contemporary
Page Count: 220
Reviewed by: Kristin
Heat Level: 3 flames out of 5
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Blurb:

To architecture student Ian Carney, family means everything. Taken in by his brother, Jim, when his father threw him out at eighteen for being gay, Ian yearns to create his own family with his boyfriend, Rico. But Rico’s in Mexico caring for a sick father, Ian hasn’t had sex in a month and a half, and his gorgeous boss, Braden Lord, CEO of the architectural firm Ian interns for, is looking better and better.

Braden’s life is chaos. Just out of the closet and going through an ugly divorce from his wife of fifteen years who’s trying to take custody of his two children, he desperately resolves not to succumb to a completely inappropriate attraction to Ian—even though his kids adore both the man and his crazy cat.

When Rico proves to be a snake in the grass and Ian exercises his powers of seduction, what starts as a “friends with benefits” fling turns into real life real fast. Can Ian give up his romantic dreams for an “old guy” who didn’t come out until he carried a mountain of baggage? It’ll only take a thousand steps.

Book #4 in the Love in Laguna Series. Can definitely be read as a standalone.

This was a sweet read that had just the right amount of tension to prevent the story from sliding over into high fructose corn syrup.

Ian is twenty one years old, has one more year of architectural school left, is currently working as an intern at Lord and Kendrick and can’t figure out why his boyfriend is giving him the cold shoulder.

Brandon is thirty-five, co-owner in the architectural firm Lord and Kendrick, recently out as gay, and is in the middle of a nasty divorce and custody battle for his two children.

Ian and Brandon clicked over a design project. Brandon’s kids clicked with Ian’s cat. Yes, we have a super sweet cat.

What I liked about this book was the character dynamics, the back and forth emotional struggle from where they are – adrift, uncertain, lonely, frustrated and, yes, horny. I enjoyed seeing the doubt from both Ian’s and Brenden’s viewpoints. I really enjoyed that there wasn’t the girly BFF in the background wanting to know all the sex details, but a solid caring gay couple in Ian’s brother and his husband. I enjoyed that people in Lord’s office brought up the difficult topics – such as boss/intern having a fling. I liked that people pointed out to Ian that no, he wasn’t necessarily a fully mature gay man romantically.

But there were a couple of things that didn’t work for me, the first and foremost being Ian’s age at twenty-one and where he was at in school. It…didn’t sit right with me. I think I would have had less issues if Ian was twenty-four or twenty-five. This concern was balanced a bit with other characters reminding Ian of his age, his immaturity in love, and the desire to have what Jim and Ken have – that Ian needs to grow up a bit more. But, I would have liked Ian to be a couple years older.

The divorce resolution happened kinda fast, furious and thus, unrealistic. I don’t know that there was any way of getting around it because the divorce was integral to the story.

This last bit is totally my quirk and others probably won’t have the same opinion – Mireille was way too precocious. I’m not fond of kids in my books, and I thought the author handled the dual ages quite well, but looking at my five year old nephew and nieces, the character Mireille just didn’t work for me. I would have liked to have seen her a couple years older.

Ultimately, this was a story I enjoyed, but I did struggle with the ages a bit.