Jack Cartland, $3.99, ISBN 979-8232156619
Historical Romance, 2025
Jack Cartland’s Lost and Found is a pleasant surprise.
Initially, seeing the words “Erotic Romance” on the cover, I assumed this would be another instant-wham-bang-ma’am story with some token “Oh ya, we’ll totally in love now!” ending slapped on to pass it all off as some meeting of souls and not just genitals. However, while it’s still kind of that, there are some efforts made to elevate the story into one about finer feelings as well.
Set in the 1930s, with some time to go before the end of the Great Depression, this story revolves around Mike Stands, a railroad man that picks up Dan for some company at the price of three dollars and a meal at Mike’s place. Thus, they have plenty of fun as well as some cuddling and learning more about one another.
Despite the “erotic romance” phrase on the cover, I don’t find it any more erotic than most gay romances out there. Sure, the sex scenes are explicit, but that’s just business as usual as far as the romance genre goes. Therefore, while these scenes are fine, people expecting the author to push the envelope will be disappointed. It’s more romance with explicit scenes than erotica.
Having said that, the author makes the effort to and succeeds in making the setting come alive. There are actual descriptions of cultural landmarks and elements of that time and place to improve the atmosphere and make me believe that the story is really set in that time and place, if I am making sense here.
Also, conversations flow well, and there are no awkward pacing issues to bog things down. While these may seem like basic stuff not worth celebrating over as every story should have it… well, if you have read as many independent romances as I have over the years, you may understand why finding a story that does these things well is like finding a hot and emotionally available hunk astride a unicorn waiting for me in my backyard.
The fact that conversations flow well and feel natural help make it easier for me to have a better grasp of how the feelings between these two are developing. This makes the romance feels more believable than it would otherwise be given the length of this story.
However, this leads me to one of my two issues with this story: there’s just too much talking. Every emotion and thought is relayed through conversations, and often, scenes come off as exposition dumps. Sure, they are well-written exposition dumps, but I wish the author has done more showing. After all, emotions can also be displayed through gestures and actions. Instead, I begin to notice that these two men are very, very chatty about their feelings like they are on Oprah or something.
This is tied to my second issue: I feel that the author has sawed off tad too many rough edges here.
Dan, especially, as perhaps because he is a male prostitute, the author compensates by upping Dan’s sob story and making that fellow a sensitive, emotionally distressed damsel-dude that needs saving. Come on, anyone that sells their body and stays in that business for some time gets hardened and maybe even drop their idealistic feelings. Dan should have been more Tina Turner’s Private Dancer than some sensitive poor soul.
Also, perhaps because the author wants me to be absolutely certain that Dan’s motives toward Mike are motivated by feels than mercenary intentions, Dan starts going no, no, don’t be nice to him, don’t give him nice things like come on. This makes him appear more like a dim and determined martyr than anything else.
At any rate, while the setting is real and Mike comes off like what he is supposed to be at first, once these two men meet, they start to resemble overly tidy and neat characters to make sure that the romance doesn’t feel too sordid or real. Come on, look at the setting — these men are living in a hard place during harsh times — and what these men are. They are not meant to be sensitive souls attuned to and so open about talking about their feelings, so they shouldn’t come off as such.
Still, this has been a pleasant and occasionally poignant read, so I can’t say that it hasn’t been a pleasure despite my issues with it.
In fact, I’ve forgotten how it felt like to take a work seriously because of its strengths and to write a review that isn’t completely derisive in nature, heh, so I do owe the author some degree of gratitude for reminding me!
