William NealeRecensioni

3.5 stars. Sentimental, sweet, and has character way to nice and forgiving. I enjoyed it even though there were plenty of eye rolling moments.

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed this story. Jake was my favorite character! I really wanted him to get Cade. I felt like Grant was just a second choice option. (maybe if the story focused on them for a few chapters I would of liked him better!)

2.5 stars

It’s strange to think that this will be the last book in the Home series, since, even if the editor said William Neale was thinking if it was good to continue, it’s clear that he created a world, and a set of characters, that had still a lot of stories to tell us. But without William probably there is no chance to have the same love he was displaying for his characters and his city, Cleveland.

Coincidence wanted that I was in Cleveland just days before reading this novel. If that was not the case, I’d have probably not notice so much how much details the author gives to the reader about this city. To me Cleveland was not what I was expecting, and probably if I had read this book before going there, I’d have looked at it in a different way.

Another strange, and sad coincidence, is that Hope is all about the “heart”, especially the searching of a new heart for a 11 years old kid with a heart condition; in this novel, the author often highlights how Cleveland’s hospital is top notch for this type of conditions, but still William Neale passed away, totally unexpected, from an heart attack just few days after having finished this novel. Has William “given” his heart to this novel? Probably, but not in the meaning that this novel is somehow the cause of his death, but since I think he poured all his love in it, and everyone reading it will always face the knowledge this is the last gift of William to his readers.

About the story: Hope, like the other novels in the Home series, is a full-frontal romance, maybe not particularly sexy, but very romantic. It’s not a smushy type of romance, but it’s definitely an happily ever after romance. Someone can wonder maybe about the realism of having two 17 years old boys commit themselves to a long-term relationship, but sincerely, why not? If you are that lucky to meet the love of your life at that age, why you have to deny yourself the joy to fully live it?

I particularly appreciated the character of Thomas; he is the antagonist of Hunter to gain the love of Spencer. If I have to be true, sometime I even hoped that Spencer would have not to make a choice, and that what I was nearing was a threesome. But that was not possible, and in the end, the author chooses for the less “spectacular” evolution, but probably the righter for Spencer’s character. Spencer is not some sort of cinderfella character, he has his strength and even his faults, and he needs someone to balance him in all his aspects.

William didn’t know this was the last story in the Home series, and it’s evident he left many hints in this book that he was supposed to write at least one other story. I’m sad knowing that will not be the case, but nevertheless, don’t deny yourself the joy to read this novel and of course the previous in the series.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1566680.html

As the author himself says in the “about the author” section of this book, he is a strong believer in romance and as such he is presenting himself as a romance author. So, if the plot outside the romance was maybe overlooked, I think the reason is that William Neale was more aiming to the love story than anything else, and of course, you will never hear me saying that this is not a good thing, on the contrary, it’s very positive to me.

The romance in this story is so pushed, and the pink glasses perspective as well, that despite everything and everyone should be against them, the two main heroes manage to ignore it and enjoy their long-due love story. A lot of obstacles are in their path, but one by one they dodge them apparently without much effort. Sometime I wondered if that was even possible, if really it was that simple, or if instead the author was not planning for some big blow to strike… but nope, the romance flew smoothly, the men enjoyed their love story, and in the end, more or less the last 20 page, the author rushed for the time span of 13 months, letting the reader enjoying different moments of domestic bliss.

The starting point of the story is quite believable, and probably common: a gay man, Lucas, comes back home, in a small town in Tennessee, for his father’s funeral, a father who disowned his son when he came out. Among all the unexpected people who came to pay their homage there is Rogan, the high-school bully who harassed Lucas when they were in school. Of course to an external eye, the reason why Rogan was so fixated with Lucas was obvious, it was an unrequited love the guy was not able to admit. But now they are 30 years old, both financially independent, and so there is no reason why they cannot enjoy each other. Of course the author decided to write both of them like that to avoid any little problem to their happiness: they have not to worry to lose their job since they don’t really need it; living in two different, and far away States is no problem, since they can simply decided what suits them best an move in. Their only problem is to decide if they finally want to enjoy the romance they dreamt at school, and of course the answer to that question is simple: Yes, they do.

As I said, the romance overcomes anything else in the story, such as the unpleasant experience they have with a nasty reporter who made his point to outing Rogan, apparently for his personal agenda. But him, and the following scandal, are so minor occurrences, that they are soon forgotten. Actually everything seems to turning gay or gay friendly, and instead of being ostracized, Lucas and Rogan are almost invited to be the first couple of the small town. That is probably the point where I wondered if it was really possible, if it was believable that everything was so smooth for this duo, but then I thought, well, this is a romance after all!

I’m not sure, but after the rushing the reader experienced in the last few pages of the story, the ending was almost abrupt; that made me wonder if the author doesn’t have a plan to write a sequel for this story and these men.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608202127/?tag=elimyrevandra-20