Duplicity and Dandelions.



Duplicitous Dandelions.

I swear looking at this book's cover makes me smirk even harder. Love it.

Duplicity and Dandelions, you're wondering(WTF)?

This is my second title for "[b:Truthful Change|8352979|Truthful Change|Jane Davitt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1275373685s/8352979.jpg|14618027]". It's unofficial but it fits.

Aiden is a gay FBI agent, living with his doctor boyfriend, Scott. With Aiden out working undercover a lot and Scott being well a doctor, these two are on different schedules. It seems like different wavelenengths really. Scott's the boring vanilla in Aiden's wishful cinnamon-ginger spice sex life.

Not.

Good.

So when the FBI assigns 31 year old Aiden to be undercover as being bait as 22 year old, gay virgin and gardener Adam to a well known gay ex-mercenary, Karl, what could go wrong?

Not a lot in my book. All of the wrongs were oh so right!

When Aiden and Karl are together, they are everything but vanilla.

(And if you're not a fan of 'cheating' in romance, don't read this story unless your prepared for some yummy steamy action.)

Karl? Hubba hubba.(I'd like one of him please)

Karl is one sexy bad-ass mofo, anal retentive (& an asshole--at times says me and Aiden) ex-mercenary. He's forced into an early retirement and takes out his frustrations on his gardener, Adam who seems to keep missing pulling out all of those dandelions.

These two are like gasoline and sparks. Just made for each other. When Karl bites (Did I mention he's a biter? God loves a biter and so do I!) Adam when 'introducing' him into the joys of gay sex? Great.

And then around 50% when Karl finds out about Adam being Aiden? They turned up their fire from hot-hot-high to scorching.

Gimme a minute.



I loved the story. Loved the duplicity all around. (Aiden in my book was great. And he redeems himself if you need to be sold. How? Read this book.) The way the authors intro Aiden, then we are slammed into Adam - his thoughts and that acting like a blushing newbie to gay sex? LOVED it. And Karl and Aiden/Adam...they were just great together.

Oh and not only is there hot man action, there's action (car chases, bad guys, guns a-shooting, etc.) too. A little something for everyone. I'd totally recommend to M/M Romance lovers, for sure.

Excuse me while I resonate on this sexy, man-on-man tale...



(I'm purring on the inside, oh the duplicity of it all...)" ( )

Truthful Change was a marvy read with a gardening boy, ex military hard bodies and some rough, dirty, garden shed sex. I liked it a great deal, as one can imagine!

I think what these two authors do well is the power dynamic between their characters. How they portray their more submissive boys, like Aiden really resonates. He’s ballsy, clever and incredibly in control of himself, but you get the feeling that despite being in a relationship that there’s a missing something in his life. I also like that submissive doesn’t somehow mean less. This pisses me off in books that have a BDSM flavor, and while this novel was not hard core, there is a definite whiff of D/s. Karl was such a great character, pretty blokey, stoic and knows what he wants. He also has a predilection for leaving bite marks that I appreciated hugely. Nom.

Often we talk about world building in relation to a fantasy or sci fi novel, but I think this is equally important in a contemporary novel. I liked how most of the scenes are set either within Karl’s house, the garden or Aiden/Adams apartments and their stake out. They all felt very contained and caused the tension to ratchet up a few levels due to their close confines. It meant that most of the interactions were also based around the two characters and their developing intimacy, rather than extraneous events and people. One element of the book that did surprise me was the issue of fidelity between Aiden and his lover Scott. Normally this can be a deal breaker for me, but the authors made it work.

Truthful Change is a seriously sexy and rather marvelous read. Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow do not disappoint and I highly recommend this fab book. If you enjoy it, then do check out Bound and Determined. If you have a fetish for gardening boys (did I read something someone said about owning your fetish???) then do read In and Out but L.B. Gregg. nom.

http://sharrow.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/truthful-change-by-jane-davitt-and-alexa... ( )

Starting this novel I was having the impression of have already read it, cute gardener draws attention of older (and experienced) gay man; older gay man offers to be the “playfield” for cute gardener, to test the waters, and the boundaries, in all security and without strings attached.

But already at the end of chapter 2 the story took a different route, and even if it was about FBI agents spying on former mercenaries, the path led to a very personal story, about Aiden/Adam who is not able to split between his job and his personal life; he has to have sex with Karl, for the sake of his undercover assignment, but he is not able to consider it only a job, problem is that sex with Karl is way better of what he has ever experienced with his in-living boyfriend Scott.

Nothing out of the ordinary, only more passionate sex that apparently Scott is not able to give him; Aiden doesn’t want excitement, he is not searching for a dominant lover, even if he is an FBI agent, Aiden basically remains the linguistic student who was recruited by the Agency as soon as he was out of college. With Scott he has a good life, and if he was the teacher he was supposing to be, that life would have been probably perfect: Scott, an emergency doctor, the one with the demanding job, and Aiden more or less willing to shape his life around it. But with his work as an FBI agent, Aiden had the chance to see something more, to realize that even if he likes Scott, he is not really in love with him.

Karl is like a punch in the gut, he immediately takes root in Aiden’s mind and heart, and it’s really difficult to play the innocent man with him. Aiden wants to prove to Karl that he can be the right partner for him, that he is not the naïve boy he is posing.

The first half of the book is all about Karl and Aiden, about their relationship, and Aiden’s mission is almost inexistent. But even when the dangerous plot takes place, it’s always less important than the possible evolution of Karl and Aiden’s story.

The story is mostly about Aiden, about his point of view. Even if Karl is an imposing character, he gave me the idea of a balanced man, not easy to burst of rage; he starts his relationship with Aiden almost out of boring, he continues it since it’s good, and when Aiden’s true identity comes out, he has almost no reaction, if not for a somewhat annoyed feeling, like someone had crushed down his house of cards.

There is a lot of sex and it’s good; Karl knows how to play Aiden in the right way, and yes, in this case, sex comes way before love and it’s good even without it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XNTZE8/?tag=elimyrevandra-20