Deanna Wadsworth

Happy Endings is a short story written for the M/M Romance Groups Love Has No Boundaries picture prompt event. It's written in first person through the eyes of Will, a massage therapist for the US Men's Gymnastics team.



This story takes place all in a short afternoon at Alexei's apartment. Will has arrived to find out what is wrong with Alexei since he hadn't shown up for practice. Alexei finally lets Will into the apartment and Will gives him a massage.

Through Will's commentary we find out what happened to Alexei and how Will feels about the gymnast. For such a short read, the author did a good job of conveying Will's attraction to Alexei and his desire to protect and care for the gymnast. Alexei angst over what happened to him and Will's concern is easily felt.

The author fulfilled the requestor's prompt well and even though this is a very short read, I give it 4 Stars.



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The Best Ever is the story of Jason Lewis and Blake Huntington and their second chance together with a little help from Madame Eve, who owns a company called 1Night Stand. The company seems to have an uncanny ability to match people together for a memorable night, or maybe more. The story is told in third person through both Jason’s and Blake’s eyes.


3.5 Stars
The story starts with a prologue of Jason the geeky, young nerd tutoring the high school baseball star, Blake, in math. Over the course of months, they become good friends and through Blake’s friendship, Jason is no longer bullied as much at school. They part ways after Blake graduates and goes on to college and to the major leagues. But Jason follows Blake’s career until they once again meet at a video game convention where sports figures are signing autographs for their games.

Jason is now twenty-two when they meet again. He’s a bit more confident, thanks to Blake’s support in high school, but he still has this insecurity inside when faced with ‘the cool kids’ as he calls them. Blake as always, is as outgoing and friendly as ever. When they meet at the convention the scene was enjoyable. I could feel Blake’s happiness at seeing Jason again.

The first half of the book is told in Jason’s pov. One of the things the author did to add a little more emotion to the scenes was to give us snippets of Jason’s thoughts using hashtags. It was something Jason and his sister used while texting. I enjoyed the hashtags for about the first quarter of the book, after that it got old quick to the point of annoying.

Blake’s pov didn’t occur until Jason and Blake were in the suite together. I was disappointed in Blake’s voice. None of the enthusiasm or longing for Jason really came through his pov. I found it rather flat.

Once in the suite, the scenes are almost all sex. I also thought the writing wasn’t as good. It was choppy and I didn’t feel as immersed in it as I did the first half. Another thing I didn’t like was the over use of descriptors such as, ‘smaller man, bigger man, big guy,’ etc. Also there were too many pronouns that made who was speaking confusing when the use of their names would have worked out much better.

There's a plot discrepancy if you want to call it. I'll spoiler tag it.

When Jason first sees Blake at the signing, Jody, Blake's rep, comes over to have Jason sign a release to use his image etc in Blake Huntington, Inc. At that time she says to Jason, "This'll be a great follow up to his 'It Gets Better' video." I admit I don't know much about those videos, but aren't they usually about LGBT people's lives after they grow up? See this seems contrary to what later the author has Blake tell Jason, that he keeps the info that he's gay on the very down low. Meaning only Blake's rep, his family and a few other necessary people know. Now if that's true, what is he doing making an 'It Gets Better' vid? Wouldn't that be outing himself?

Despite the many issues I had with the story, I’m going to round up and give The Best Ever, 4 Stars. The reason is because of the magical overtones to the story. I think the author did that well. I also think the two characters were believable as friends who always had crushes on each other, and then they became lovers. Jason and Blake are a cute pair. The final reason is because I loved Blake’s enthusiasm when he met Jason again and his interaction with him at the party. I think those were the best scenes in the book.

If you’re looking for a cute, fluffy, friends to lovers, second chance, romantic story, this one is for you.


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