Duty & Devotion by Tere Michaels
And with this one I completed the Faith, Love & Devotion trilogy. It’s a series that goes better book after book, but the most extraordinary thing is that already the first book was really good and so, escalating in quality meant that the third book is very high in that scale.
I probably liked better Duty & Devotion than Faith & Fidelity, since Matt and Evan were still having trouble, but their relationship was strong and steady. Never once I had the feeling that they were giving up, and even if things were not going smoothly, I felt like both of them were into that.
D&D starts exactly at the end of F&F, when Evan, reluctantly, agrees to start an “open” relationship with Matt; not only that, they are now living together and Matt is taking care of the kids, while Evan is at work… not exactly a macho man situation, and I have the idea that Evan is still hiding in the closet; true, he is living with a man, but look, that man is behaving like a woman, he is an househusband, and yes, alright, he has not the natural equipment of a woman, but that is irrelevant. And then, if you have the chance to peak on their bedroom at night, you will see that Evan and Matt didn’t take the last step, they are not walking on the dark side… for all it takes, Evan is not gay and so Matt.
At the beginning was nice to see a domestic version of Matt, it was cute to see him interacting with the kids, but then I also started to feel Matt’s uneasiness, his unwilling dismissal of his mainly side; maybe if during their sex life he had the chance to express it, he would be able to balance his daily persona, but not even that. Both in bed than out of the bed, Evan continues with his denial of everything “gay”, while at the same time declaring eternal love to Matt. And that is strange since I believed Evan, and was sure of that love; what it was nice of this novel is that the author managed to have both characters on the right side, the reader, me, was not able to taking sides for one of the other, but basically I patiently waited for the evolution and the clarifier moment. No worries that that moment was not happening, as I said, it was clear that the love between Matt and Evan was a too strong bond to be break.
I didn’t mind the introduction / reacquaintance with Griffin and Jim, they are probably the key supporting character, Griffin in particular. I didn’t get so much the trio Daisy, Bennet and Shane, I had the feeling the author is planning something, but I’m not sure of how that story will develop.
This is a story with an high dose of romance, but not too much drama; as I said, it’s not a bed of roses for Matt and Evan, but I think it’s basically the ordinary trouble you can have when you are at the beginning of a relationship, and you need to find the right balance: Evan has to let it go a bit, Matt has, maybe, to take things a bit too seriously; both of them are, indeed, adult people with a strong core, but also with the ability to admit when they were wrong, and that is probably a good basis to start.
http://www.loose-id.com/Duty-and-Devotion.aspx
Amazon Kindle: Duty & Devotion
Series: Faith, Love & Devotion
1) Faith & Fidelity: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/399075.html
2) Love & Loyalty: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1060740.html
3) Duty & Devotion
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading+list&view=elisa.rolle