This book was in the 'New Books' display at the library and I thought the blurb sounded interesting so I gave it a go. The basic plotline follows a gay couple who get told by a friend that he'd videoed a famous actor having sex; the thing is, he's famous for being an out gay actor and he was caught having sex with a woman. So the couple decide to blackmail him to get lots of money, except for the slight issue that the video got left in a taxi. It's not a bad read and the plot is quite good, but it's quite slow and drawn out, it takes ages to get going and it pretty much degenerates rapidly into complete farce. Which is okay if you like that kind of thing, but to me, it just got more and more ridiculous.

The majority of the characters are gay or lesbian, which would be quite nice if they were all well-rounded. They're pretty flat and I found it hard to care about any of them. I'm not sure if the author was trying to make them as anti-stereotypical as possible but somehow they ended up being more of a stereotype that way. There was an awful lot of characters though, partly because of how it all degenerated into far too many people being involved in the blackmail plot, and it was kind of hard to keep track of them all.

It's one of those kind of books that you can read on a holiday while you're lazing by the pool or something. A light bit of fluff that takes no energy to read at all, and it's good at that. ( )

This novel is less 'romance' than expected and probably funnier. First of all the two main characters, from the blurb and even from the cover I was expecting for them to be two young guys with big hopes and few means, and instead they are two partners in crime in a work and love relationship older than 15 years. So between them everything is easy, they know each other and their mutual faults. There is not much romance, meaning that there are not much love scenes (and never once we arrive to a sex scene) but between Chase and Grant there is for sure a love relationship. Here and there you can also have an hint that it was not always simple, that maybe sometime they had to overcome some obstacles in their path, but more or less they were successful in doing that, and I have never had the feeling that their relationship was in trouble.

Problem is that at more or less 40 years old, they are too old to continue to live on expedients, they maybe want to retire or arriving at least near that. And so when Jamie comes to them with a not so legal proposition, Grant sees the chance to hit the big one. Jamie filmed a famous gay actor and activist, Romeo Romero, having sex… with a woman. The tape is worth a lot, the problem is that Jamie lost it! In a cab! From that moment on Grant starts to plan a way to have it back and more he goes on, more people are involved and more I was trying to understand if, once everyone was paid back, something for Chase and Grant’s retirement plan was still available.

As I said, the novel is more a comedy than a romance, and even if it deals with thieves and blackmails, for sure it’s not a mystery or an adventure plot… probably the only mystery is how our heroes manage to not end up in a jail, since they didn’t give me the idea to be real criminals. Chase and Grant are more or less good boys who are trying to survive, and even their crimes usually are petty crimes, that more or less don’t give much trouble neither to their victims: some money here, a stolen car there, nothing of irreplaceable or real life-important.

Other than Chase and Grant, there are other supporting characters that I think in a way stole the scene to them. Lisa, the lesbian real estate agent with a lip-stick girlfriend, Paul the driver, even Will the unwilling blackmailer, or Henry the 41 years old policeman with a crush for the 16 years old “Amber”, no one of them is really “honest”, but no one of them is really a criminal. But who for me shine among them all is Jared, the twinkiest of the twinks: with is out of body-lose in dreams moments and his philosophy of life (every man with money is hot), he is for sure the most funniest and original of all the characters and I really wouldn’t mind to read his own personal story, where of course he would be able to find his hot sugar daddy, with a lot of money and, why not?, who is also an hot guy for real. Who instead had great potential, but among all these characters remained a bit in the shadow was Jamie: again, I think he’s good material for something more.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0758228570/?tag=elimyrevandra-20