BOOKS ‘n COZY SPOTS BOOK REVIEWS of Home The Hard Way by Z. A. Maxfield
4 ~ Stars
Review of HOME THE HARD WAY by Z. A. Maxfield
Mystery-Suspense/Romance/MM/light BDSM
Purchased at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Jaycee ~ for Books ‘N Cozy Spots Book Reviews, www.Talon-ps.com
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Dare Buckley has come home—or at least, he’s come back to Palladian, the small town he left as a teenager. After a major lapse in judgment forced him to resign from the Seattle PD, Palladian is the only place that’ll hire him. There’s one benefit to hitting rock bottom, though: the chance to investigate the mystery of his father’s suicide.
Dare also gets to reacquaint himself with Finn Fowler, whose childhood hero worship ended in uncomfortable silence when Dare moved away. But Finn isn’t the same little kid Dare once protected. He’s grown into an attractive, enigmatic stranger who neither wants nor needs what Dare has to offer.
In fact, Dare soon realizes that Finn’s keeping secrets—his own and the town’s. And he doesn’t seem to care that Dare needs answers. The atmosphere in Palladian, like its namesake river, appears placid, but dark currents churn underneath. When danger closes in, Dare must pit his ingenuity against his heart, and find his way home the hard way.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Nicely executed mystery-suspense, with the right amount of romance and the characters to make the entire course of events supremely interesting. Well, and of course, the author to pull it off—right to the somewhat unanticipated climax.
While not apparent at the outset, Dare is the only open book of all the characters. He is also the only one not in the loop. The prodigal son returns to his hometown in something of a disgrace, professionally at least. Personally, he tries to stop the slow slide into the bottle while also renewing an old friendship he let lapse, and is at first wary of what he wants that friendship to be. His former hero-worshipping protégé is…changed. And he’s not certain how to take that, especially as it appears there may be some sinister and probably illegal goings-on with said friend. Not to mention, defining the parameters of the relationship is most unexpected for Dare, though not altogether unwanted.
Finn is the younger, openly gay and former friend Dare reacquaints himself with. No longer bullied, beaten or cowed as he was in childhood, Finn would seem to hold something of a sway over many of his former protractors. And yet he remains alone and still, by choice, isolated.
As a disgraced cop with a second chance in his old stomping grounds, this is the tale of Dare’s attempt to regroup, reassimilate, and perhaps solve the mystery of his father’s death, which by all accounts, is only a mystery to him. He runs the risk of making the same professional mistake that sent him back home, and yet his gut tells him there is a very large missing piece.
The beauty is that once the whopper of a missing piece is revealed to the reader, and then to Dare…it’s still not over. The proverbial “fat lady” has yet to sing, and oh does the tune resonate.
This story is replete with mystery-suspense, lust-love, humour and sadness. The bad guys are not really so bad save one, and that particular one was not on my personal radar right up to the reveal. All the characters are suitably flawed so as to be real, and acceptance of the truth and of self, on all fronts, is hard-won.
A worthy tale and a great read.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
HOME THE HARD WAY also received the following ratings:
ROMANCE FACTOR ~ 3 hearts
HEAT FACTOR ~ 2 Flames
STING FACTOR ~ 2 paddles
TWIST FACTOR ~ whodunit was well played
TISSUE FACTOR ~ a box of tissue would not be amiss.
Talon P.S.'s Blog
- Talon P.S.'s profile
- 188 followers
