Hot Head by Damon Suede
Up front, this is one of the best M/M romance I have read lately, even more surprisingly since this a debut from Damon Suede. The author is not new to the M/M crowd and so maybe he socked up a lot of do and don’t about this genre, and he wonderfully displayed them in this novel.
The story is simple but hot as hell, the sex is so good I probably for the first time in a long, long period, read it all instead of “mentally” skimming it (yes, I do that, when the sex is too much, I tend to do my own personal editing/cutting on the scene, without even realizing it). The plot is so romantic that was almost (not too much) bearable, and no, it’s not a complaint: it had that level of romanticism that makes your heart ache good without thinking, all right, that is not realistic. But there was also that right level of sadness, when the author was remembering that telling a story about fire-fighters in New York City is not possible without paying his homage to who died on September 11, 2001.
As I said, there was a certain level of pink glasses perspective, Dante is an Italo-American man coming from a conservative family, but the conservatism of his family was not of the negative shade; the family is tight knit like most of the Italo-American family you heard about, but they were also supporting, and there was no opposition coming from them, on the contrary, Griff, the man Dante loves, is almost like another son to them. There is an hint of trouble coming from their job environment, the NYFD maybe is not “gay-friendly”, but again, the author chose to let the reader know he was aware of the issue, but he also chose to not face that issue now (btw, in many point I had the feeling Damon Suede was taking inspiration from a real-life case, a certain Michael Biserta, firefighter, who got into some trouble since he filmed a blatantly gay video, and then was the star of the NYFD calendars).
The main concept of the story is that, both Griffin and Dante had a scaring face-to-face meeting with death during September 11, 2001, and after that nothing was the same. They had to cling to what was safe, and the only thing was the love they had for each other and for “their” family. That love moved from friendship to real love without even them realizing it, and than it was too late, too late to fight it, too late to not acknowledge it. What I really loved of this novel is that both Griffin than Dante are men in one piece, there is no half measures, or you totally love or you don’t love, and when they take a decision, their love is full and complete, without exceptions.
I strongly recommend this novel to all the romance lovers, I’m sure you will love it as much as I did.
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2394
Amazon: Hot Head
Amazon Kindle: Hot Head
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (June 17, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1615819487
ISBN-13: 978-1615819485
Reading List:
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Cover Art by Anne Cain