Reviewed for Blackravens Reviews
Publisher: Silver Publishing
Image courtesy of Silver Publishing
Genre: GLBT, Contemporary, M/M, BDSM
Length: 111 pages
Stars:
Blurb
Edna Murphy places a personal ad to find her son, Jovan, a mate. He spends most of his time working or fishing with friends and rarely goes out on a date. She wants him to find someone nice and settle down.
Galen Costas drives his mother crazy. He cooks dinner three times a week, does the grocery shopping, and cleans and arranges the furniture. And he doesn’t even live in the same house. Gemma thinks he needs a life and takes matters into her own hands by answering a lonely heart ad.
Jovan and Galen click the moment they meet. But their match made in heaven could be ruined by a man from Galen’s past.
Review
Shawn Bailey has the beginnings of a good story in Soul Mate, a tale about what desperate mothers will do to rescue their lonely gay sons from themselves.
Jovan Murphy is a shy freelance photographer hiding out in his bedroom at his parent’s home; while Galen Costas is a local fitness celebrity who has his own home, but somehow manages to get himself overly involved in the day-to-day lives of his parents. Galen cooks, cleans, mops and even rearranges furniture in his parents’ home. Edna Murphy is looking for a way to rescue her lonely son when she decides to place a personal ad seeking a soul mate for him. Gemma Costas answers the ad believing she’s found a way to get Galen out from under foot. It’s not that these mothers don’t love their sons; they just want to see them in happy, secure relationships.
The attraction between Galen and Jovan is sweet and on occasion tender. Galen is very nurturing and engaging, while Jovan is more sexually charged. The exchanges between them are nice, if a little rushed. Jovan appears shy, but almost immediately he’s dragging Galen off for the down and dirty. Still, I liked the exchanges between Jovan and Galen and the two families.
Problems arise in Soul Mate when Bailey introduces other elements such as jealous former boyfriends into the story. If these other elements are real obstacles to the relationship, Bailey brings them in too abruptly to get any credible traction in the story. While Soul Mate is not a lengthy book, it’s certainly long enough for Bailey to introduce these plot conflicts much earlier.
I’ve read books by Shawn Bailey in the past and liked them a great deal. I like Soul Mate, but it has some plotting issues. It’s worth 2.5 stars at best.