Promises [Paperback]

This is a well written, expressive and convincing romance. I like the small town setting, with its almost ordinary day-to-day atmosphere, the interaction and dialogue among the characters. The characters including the supporting ones are your ordinary Joes but that is where the attractiveness of the story lies. Jared and Matt are both likable and credible. I enjoy the well paced development of their relationship from friendship, undeniable attraction, to love and commitment. And sex is kept to the right balance (Thank You). The writer has also done a wonderful job "growing" these characters.

Matt is a cop in the closet but refuses to admit his sexuality as he fears the consequences from his homophobic father who still has him under his thumb. Jared may admit he is gay but he is so uncomfortable in his skin. He lives in fear of the consequences of living fully gay in his small town. So much so that he rather gives up his wish to be a teacher and lives looking after the family shop.
The beginning of their relationship is very well conveyed. Matt refuses to accept Jared and yet unwilling to lose him. Jared afraid to pressure Matt as it means living openly as a gay man and of course he is fearful of eventual rejection. The growth of these two vulnerable men as the story progresses is well done. The side characters are well intertwined into their story. Matt started off needing a shake-up but when he decides to come out and be with Jared he truly shines and actually become the stronger of the two. Jared finally overcoming his own inner struggles, accepts who he is and reaches for what he wants is uplifting. The chemistry between the two men is palpable and I love a story which is well narrated. This writer has a fine style and her writing is so easy to immerse in.

Promises is a charming story about coming out, taking risks and falling in love. Loaded with much angst and bike riding, it was a very cool read.

Jared is out in his small town, but aware well aware that he is not always accepted as a part of his community. Initially it does not color his actions, but in the latter parts of the book it does provide a bone of contention between Matt and Jared as they try and make what they have together work. Matt has never been with another man in a long term sexual relationship, so a lot of the story is about him coming to terms with himself and his feelings for Jared. (I do have a penchant for this trope I think. I liked. A lot!!) I thought the authors treatment of the growing attraction between the two men was beautifully done and the slow building of smexual tension just made me sigh.

The rest of the book was reasonably well put together. At times the world building was a little light and a couple of the plot devices felt a little jarring, but I'm not sure how else you'd tie it all together to be honest. I also enjoyed it so much I kinda ignored that stuff.

Promises was a total winner and I can't wait to see what this author does next.

Jared Thomas is an openly gay man living in his small hometown of Coda, Colorado. There's only one other gay man in town, but he's years older and a former teacher, so Jared doesn't have much of a social life. He doesn't actually have much of a professional life, either. Despite being highly educated and having his teaching degree, Jared helps his brother and sister-in-law at the family store. He's certain any attempt to teach in Coda would end badly because of his sexuality, and he's unwilling to leave the town and the mountains he loves. Doesn't make him any less lonely, however, so when Matt Richards walks into the store while Jared is manning the counter and asks about the Jeep for sale sitting outside, Jared is instantly attracted and quick to jump up and offer a test drive - of the Jeep. Not himself. Though...

Matt's the new police officer in town and Jared finds out that they have a lot in common...and if it wasn't for the fact that Matt's a Chiefs fan and Jared's a die hard of their division rivals, the Broncos, Matt would be utterly perfect. Despite the obvious error in football judgment, however, Jared and Matt bond fast and hard over sports, activities, movies, food...everything. For the first time in his life, Jared has a best friend and if it weren't for the fact that Matt steadfastly asserts he's straight, he could very well have a soul mate.

Jared realizes he's in love with Matt. Matt is determined to be straight. Their friendship is one of legend for the fun months of summer, but the longer they hang out together, the closer and closer Matt gets to him and the more and more Jared starts to wonder if hope isn't lost after all. Conflicted emotions and torturous expectations threaten to kill any hope of a romance and break the friendship apart totally when one night Matt acts on urges that he doesn't understand and definitely doesn't want.

This is such a great story, made wonderful by the characters of Jared and Matt. Told in first person POV from Jared's perspective, we get a lot of insight into him as a character, and I loved how Sexton balanced Matt's fiercely determined heterosexuality with Jared's less obvious but just as crippling fears. Both men have issues that they can only overcome with each other and I loved that about Promises. I also loved the friendship these men had and the way that this book starts with them really being soul mates without anything sexual between them at all. They erase each others' loneliness and it was a fantastic thing to see.

There were a few things that prevented me from loving the overall book. I think Sexton has quite a lot of technical skill, the narrative is fluid and characters well developed, and other than a couple of editing misses (i.e. Cherie's name being used when Lizzy was being referred to), the story has a very polished, contemporary feel to it. My issues are mostly of the personal preference variety, actually, not criticisms of the story as is.

Despite the months of friendship before anything romantic developed between Jared and Matt, Sexton tossed a lot of issues at the couple in a relatively short span of the book as Matt crashes out of the closet and Jared's life starts to be forcibly widened beyond family. Most of those issues are quite obvious and expected, but not all of them were strictly necessary. I wish that one or two had been pared down to allow for meatier, more significant development of the other very valid issues in a more realistic and less glossed over fashion. I'm not a fan of angsty drama, so I'm not saying I would have preferred that, but I have to admit, this book read a little too lightly for my personal tastes. Every problem was addressed head on, dealt with, and was moved on from without a backwards glance and that's just not the most realistic or, for my personal tastes, satisfying fiction fodder.

I kept getting this mental image of Sexton standing at the edge of a still body of water, a flat stone in her hand. The water is the dark and sometimes desperate issues that any new relationship faces, with an oily top layer of added muck that are the difficulties that two openly gay men can face in society in general and in a small town in particular. The rock in her hand is Jared and Matt's relationship. I kept seeing her sling that rock across the lake and it skipped across the surface, even dipped deeper once or twice before continuing along the top...all the way to the other side, not once really sinking deep enough long enough to truly expound on serious issues in a serious manner.

Again, I'm not complaining or criticizing. I liked Promises quite a bit and loved Matt and Jared. I just wish it had focused on one or two issues that could have been developed with more depth. I didn't like the plot thread revolving around the murder and didn't think it added to the story. I get that Matt is a cop, so maybe that was to tie into that fact, but I didn't feel it necessary to have that element in the book. It smacked of needless melodrama that was covered by Jared's bike accident. I didn't fully understand what Matt's issues were with anal sex, even after he 'explained' it. Jared didn't understand it either, so I didn't feel too stupid, but I wish that issue had been clarified, because I was really scratching my head over it and the fact that it wasn't really understood left it feeling unresolved.

Still, Promises is a good, solid, and sweetly romantic read that I enjoyed very much. I've noticed that Sexton has written several other books with some character overlap, so I'm looking forward to expanding into the loosely connected series. I would definitely recommend this book, especially to neophytes to the M/M romance genre, because the sex scenes were realistic and organic to the development of the relationship and neither overly graphic nor overtly described. It's would be a solid starting point to the wonders and delights of M/M fiction.

Originally reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 49 reviews  4.7 out of 5 stars