I’m Your Man by Timothy James Beck
Even if this book is out of stock, I highly recommend to everyone who enjoyed the previous books in this “Manhattan” gay series to read I’m Your Man. I read it after reading what could be considering a sequel, When You Don’t See Me, the story of Nick, Blaine’s nephew that right in this book comes to live with his uncle Blaine, but that is in the final chapters and so, if you don’t read it in order, you have some spoilers (exactly as I did now, but that is a minor one).
Basically I’m Your Man is the obvious sequel of It Had To Be You, the book where Daniel and Blaine meet and fall in love. It’s a good book, a nice and comfortable romance, with a right dose of sex, but not overwhelming; like all the books in this series, it’s more important the net of friendships that develops like a flood, overwhelming everyone who falls under it. They are all living between Eau Claire, small town, and Manhattan, big city, but apparently there is no difference, sometime Manhattan is as small, and butchering, and gossiping, like Eau Claire, if not much.
One of the most interesting things, at the same harder to remember if you don’t read the book one after the other, but also comforting, like you are meeting with old friends, is that everyone seems to be the boyfriend/girlfriend, or former boyfriend/girlfriend, of someone else. When I’m Your Man starts, Blaine is living the aftershock of his breakup with Daniel: they fought over some stupid argument, and maybe helped by the stress of both jobs, but also by the stress coming from being in that stage of life when you have to stop be boyfriends and you have to become partner, they didn’t manage to overcome it. Blaine wonders from friend to friend, and sometime this lead him to have sex with some of them: I think Blaine is searching comfort, and family, something he wanted with Daniel. One of these men is Ethan, former boyfriend of Martin, best friend of Daniel; one of Blaine’s best friend is Adam, partner of Jeremy, ex-boyfriend of Daniel; Blaine accepts to be the sperm donor for Gretchen, who will start a relationship with Gwendy, Daniel’s sister… see? Everyone and everything link Blaine to Daniel, and so, even if they are not together, I really didn’t feel the sadness of the breakup, it’s not like the authors spoiled the happily ever after of It Had To Be You, this was only the obvious sequel, and the development of Blaine’s character. Even if he was Daniel’s partner in It Had To Be You, that book was all about Daniel, and Blaine needed his space and story.
I really like this series, since the characters felt real, even if they are soap opera actors, guru of the advertisement, or super top models… their lives are not all glittering, and they have the ordinary trouble that falling in love gives. They love and fight, they make peace and mistake again, and every time it’s not like in a “romance”, but like it could happen to you; only that for them, maybe there is a paparazzi ready to shoot them and plastering they face on the media.
A little warning, I read When You Don’t See Me before this one, and it did spoil me a bit the final; plus that book was good but sad. Between this and that story there are years, not only in the storyline, but also in the release dates of the book. I think the authors changed, in many ways: as writers but also as men and women. So you have the idea to read all these books, read them in order.
Amazon: I'm Your Man
1) It Had to Be You: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/744800.html
2) He's the One: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/628689.html
3) I'm Your Man
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle