Claire Thompson

Handyman by Claire Thompson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a writer, I find reading books by successful authors in my genre a very educational experience. What makes them successful? In many cases it's the sheer volume of quick, easy reads they produce. Carol Lynne, Stormy Glenn, Kim Dare and Claire being cases in point. Often (but not always) the standard of their writing improves as they progress. Even if they don't, people who only give their books 3 stars are still happy to buy more when they come out. So they must be doing something right, right?
During the recent "Black Friday" sales I purchased a stack of Claire Thompson's books. I'd seen her work rating highly on a number of lists but was wary because one of the first BDSM books I read was a m/f/m ménage of hers which I hated with a passion.
As I'm a fast reader, I churned through the new books pretty quickly because they are easy reads. In a way this is unfair to the author as quirks in their style of writing and "voice" become even more apparent as do repetitive phrasings, words (nether hole – shudder) and themes.
"Handyman" is obviously her most popular, so I left it until last. However, this review also contains references to "Blind Faith" as the problems and strengths I found in it illustrate better what I'm trying to say.
What I don't like about Claire's writing.
Too often she builds to a climax like a kiss or a fuck and then before it actually happens, wham, bam she ends the chapter. You turn the page expecting to see the event and the time has suddenly shifted forward to the next day or even the next week and you may or may not get a description of what happened as a recall. (Golden Boy and Golden Man were filled with those.) So what should have been a "show" instead becomes pretty much a "tell".
Take this section in "Blind Faith" for example after we've had a big lead up to their first kiss since Zane came back, then mid-kiss almost, the time suddenly switches to the morning after:

Aidan touched his lips in wonder, the imprint of Zane's kiss still hot upon them. The air in the room crackled with desire. The evening had a sense of the surreal about it. Perhaps it really was just another of his erotic dreams. In a moment he would wake up in his bed, his hand on his cock, alone as always. Yet he knew it was no dream. The man next to him was real, his familiar scent a compelling combination of cedar, honey and the musk of desire. He wanted Zane as much as he'd ever wanted him. The kiss had blown the gates off his carefully corralled feelings and he knew he was in trouble.

Lyrical writing, but not as good as "seeing" this encounter in the moment. These types of feelings can still be used during the event. Especially as immediately afterwards it switches into a "show" scene and you get unimportant dialogue about saving electricity!
In fact a lot of her books contain an unusually high amount of recall and backstory. Given the short length of the books, this can sometimes create an imbalance.
Another problem I have: a lot of her characters' narratives are big "tells" about how they feel about something. It's sometimes as if they're on a therapist's couch. In a BDSM setting this can be appropriate as a sub is supposed to explore how he feels and relate this to the Dom (Jane Davitt's "Bound and Determined" does this very well). Mind you the Dom often doesn't get this opportunity so maybe that's something to ponder (Syd McGinley's Dr Fell would agree with me on that one).
I wonder at times whether this ability to articulate and discuss the why they do something is very realistic. In my experience, while women still retain a lot of the ancient "gatherer" mentality in which the females had to consider and evaluate every berry, mushroom and vegetable they foraged and teach others, males in general still are the "hunters" who act first often without thinking and it is only later at the pub when they relax with their mates and have a few beers under their belt that they have the time or the inclination to discuss and boast about why they did whatever they did. Nowadays, sport exhibits the same behavioural pattern.
Males rarely sit down time and time again and have meaningful heart to hearts like Claire's characters invariably do.
Another beef? Sometimes when she switches to the other character's POV we get a complete rehash of a scene we've just had without it adding much new. While I don't dislike this dual POV aspect of the same situation, we have to learn something different, because if she's established her characters properly and the reader has learnt how they tick, we should have worked out what would be going on in their head without being told based on what they say and do. It's only when they do something unexpected or out of character this "explanation" is needed when we switch POV.
Another thing I find is that too often to get from point A to point B in their emotional arc the characters merely make a decision to change their ways, do it and then explain why they did it to the other character. Sometimes in just a couple of paragraphs. I mentioned this in more detail in my review of "Switching Gears".
To sum up. She rushes the good bits.
Next conflict.
It's a well established dictum that all stories require conflict. This can be externally produced, the result of internal issues in a character, differences between characters, their lifestyles, their pasts. It can even be in the form of embarrassment and frustration. The whole point of romances is seeing how characters resolve and get beyond these conflicts. Preferably this requires a character to change their way of behaving, to learn lessons, to grow.
So my next beef with Claire's books is that the conflict is often in the initial situation ie the setup. This is often shown in the blurb. It is how the characters resolve this which makes a book memorable and different. Too often though, the resolution is too easy. Her characters don't have to change to overcome things. Either the conflict is made to be a non issue or if they do change it just seems to be a case of "Oh, I see the error of my ways, I'm going to change" end of story.
Here's an example in "Blind Faith" again. A person who is suddenly blind is going to, at some stage, whether he likes it or not, feel his disability creates an inequality in a relationship. He won't be able to do things the same way his partner will. I imagine this would be a huge hurdle to overcome in RL. There are a number of ways to resolve it. Find other ways they are better or physical ways to minimize this discrepancy. Yet this major stumbling block in the relationship is solved in a couple of short scenes, one making a tomato sauce and one a cake:

"...Aidan said, grinning. "I made it! Homemade tomato sauce. You used to love it, remember?" It had taken him hours to prepare the sauce, much longer than when he could see, but he'd been determined to persevere. He wanted to be more of an equal with Zane instead of the invalid he sometimes felt, reliant on his lover for so much.

Aiden's realization of this inequality and worrying about it could have been a valid source of major conflict to explore but it's just mentioned and dealt with in one paragraph and then later a similar one where he bakes a cake. The element is there, but it feels like it was a box that had to be ticked rather than viscerally real.
Feeling he would be a burden to Zane would have been another conflict that could have been more thoroughly explored. Holding him back from what he normally did. She does explore this theme a bit more, giving him a return travel ticket. Bit again the issue is resolved before it ever really becomes an issue.
Then sometimes they seem to say things totally out of character. Take this:

"What are you talking about? Aren't we a couple? Partners? I used to drag through my days, Zane, before your return. You've given back meaning to my life. I could never repay you enough. Everything I have is yours. You must know that."

I can't see an insecure guy who is always feeling he's a burden saying this. Similarly Zane says this: :

"Me?" Zane sounded genuinely surprised. "No, my place is with you now, Aidan. I couldn't leave you if I tried."

This from a guy who had disappeared overseas at regular intervals whenever he got itchy feet. Aiden hardly questions it. A more normal response, in my mind, would have been that he would have been bitter that it was only when he was blind that Zane hung around. Pity is one of the hardest emotions to deal with. Zane may have also felt love but we are only told he didn't pity him. Never shown it. A bit of tough love would have been a much more interesting relationship.
Finally, and Alex Voinov mentioned this in his review. Too much sentimental bullshit/lovey dovey dialogue for guys. In some cases one character's dialogue goes on for a whole page without any breakup of inner thought to accompany the speech. No self censorship, no reading of the reaction of the way the other person is receiving the information. This is what can sometimes make her writing two dimensional.
In "The Handyman" there's another section where they have a really long detailed conversation about their feelings. Real guys would act first, not think.
But now I've touched on "The Handyman" here's what I like about Claire's writing:
I like her comments on gay life and the way the world reacts to homosexuals. She puts some pretty powerful statements about gender, sexuality into some of her character's dialogue:

"You think we're all bisexual but society conditions us one way or the other. I know, I know."

and later:

"Sometimes I think we're all really bisexual, to one degree or another. I mean, look at girls. Girls are permitted to cuddle and kiss, to walk hand in hand and tell each other they love each other. Boys are strongly discouraged from behaving this way, but who's to say the impulse isn't there? I think humans seek comfort and love where they can find it, but our society discourages one sex over the other from expressing it, except in very defined, prescribed ways. I mean, think about it. Really think back. Was there ever someone you felt strongly about? A guy, I mean. Someone you might have had feelings for that seemed to go beyond what society dictated was proper?"

Now maybe it is just that character's opinion but messages like this do make readers think about these issues. Which can never be a bad thing.
Here's another one:

There was no question it was harder to be involved with another man. Society, at least this society, still frowned and judged, for all its pretended acceptance in the media. Gay men were still the butt of jokes about interior decorators and limp-wristed handshakes. They were still the target of degradation, discrimination and violence, based solely on their sexual orientation. Even in his own family, the bigotry and misunderstanding existed—Eric a perfect case in point. Even his own reaction, when he'd seen Paul and Will kissing at Will's door, had been one of disapproval beneath the jealousy. Men shouldn't indulge in public displays of affection, certainly not with each other.

Now whether a man would think like this and verbalize his thoughts as distinctly as this is questionable, but I like the fact she does make these statements in her books.
Again "The Handyman" suffers to a certain extent from some of the faults outlined above with the conflict being solved too easily. It might have been a more interesting book if Will had played around a bit with Paul and his mates in the dungeon.
Because I'm trying to discover their secret, I do tend to be analytical and possibly overly critical when I read. This possibly isn't fair to them, but I need to discover what it is in their writing that I don't like to ensure I don't fall into the same traps and what I do like serves as an inspiration and a reminder to me of what I should be striving for.
You may think this review is a bit harsh, but this is sort of an amalgamated look at the seventeen book of hers I bought and read one after the other. Will I read more? Yep, I haven't read "Switch" or "Polar Reaction" yet.
Finally, sometimes her male characters are TGTBT (Too Good To Be True) which is nearly as bad as females being (Too Silly To Live).
Obviously female readers like this though. A lesson I have to remember.....


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