Leah Ross, $2.99, ISBN 978-1310706202
Contemporary Romance, 2015
William Hannigan is Jonathan Morgan’s personal assistant. William is hoping that the gig will be a temporary one, as his heart is in graphic design, not hot advertising douchebags. Still, the hot part can be very persuasive, especially when it gets into his… heart, so will these two ever find a common ground to find a happily ever after?
Things go up, down, left, right, sideways, backways… and that applies to them outside the bedroom too. Fragments of Forever is basically an episodic looks into these two men’s rocky road to romance, and I am using so many hackneyed clichéd phrases here because I’m just wasting words to attempt to mask my lack of enthusiasm about these two as a couple.
The writing is fine, let me make this clear, and the whole thing is very readable. From a technical standpoint, this is a solid read.
My problem here is that the two men are oh-so-typical example of gay characters that I have come across many times before, right down to who is getting the top bunk and who is getting the lower one. They are both hot, they talk and discover just how adorably cute they are, and the whole thing feels so banal and even dull at times.
Even any perception of flaws, insecurities, or personal problem on William’s part is cheerfully telegraphed to be resolved once he hops on the hot Johnny. For example, he isn’t sure about his future career? Well, once he is attached to a hot rich guy, I don’t think he has anything to worry about like the rest of us. We may worry what happen to our finances should we quit a job we hate, or whether a career change may make us happy but doom us to poverty, but hey, that’s our fault because we don’t get a hot rich guy to be both our sugar and sugar daddy.
On a more serious note, such telegraphing also makes it harder for me to be emotionally invested in the story. Sure, one of the basic tenets of a romance story is that romance will permanently solve not just the characters’ loneliness, PTSD, past traumas, etc—yes, sex is that powerful in fiction—but also the financial woes of one character, usually the one in a position of weakness. However, I’d like things to be a little more suspenseful, let’s just say. It’s not very fun to read about a character whining about his issues, only for the story to make it abundantly clear that the other fellow is in a position to solve this character’s problems forever and ever with a wave of the hand and the crotch wand. The rest of the story will just be me waiting for these characters to realize what I have known right away, and that makes me a passive backseat reader.
On the bright side, the story escalates quickly from “My Hot Office Romance with the Douchebag but Not Really of a Boss” to “OMG! Guns! Evil People Threatening Our Lives!” Things become increasingly ludicrous, and the later parts of the story feel like they are in a different genre from the early parts. Still, the over the top drama ends up being entertaining diversion where I am concerned, as they certainly keep me turning the pages despite finding the main couple to be on the bland side.
Ultimately, I feel like the author has quickly run out of ideas after she’s had her characters hook up, and resort to soap-opera style villains and drama to keep things going. In this case, I feel that it’s the right thing to do, because the main couple is not strong enough to carry the show on their own. Let’s put it this way: if the author had killed off the couple and shifted the focus to other characters later on, I don’t think I’d be mad. I may not even miss the couple, heh.
Even then, I feel that the soap opera villainy could have been pushed a little further to be even more over the top, in order to entertain me further. Maybe the villains could monologue longer and harder, maybe someone should get amnesia, or a guest appearance by Alexis Carrington Colby perhaps.
Then again, if I get these things, I’d also get a story that is completely different from what Fragments of Forever is. Oh well, maybe this is just a case of me and the story not being the right fit.
