This is a single point of view romance, and it works perfectly.

Single POV can read like a device to make a story more mysterious than it is. But Toby, thoughtful, messed up Toby, is the perfect narrator. He's smart, but he's been affected by the emotional damage he's taken, under the constant stress of "different." It makes for a certain type of "blindness" that's heartbreaking. His version(s) of Levi, ditto.

I can always tell when a story affects me this strongly. It takes me forever to hammer my thoughts into a coherent review. As a reader, I fell in love with Toby and ached for Levi, and Chris. As a writer, I'm in awe. I will be seeking other work by this author. She's damn good.

It deserves more stars. ( )

Toby has loved Levi most of his life. Levi doesn't know. Levi can't know because Toby is best friends with Levi's brother, and they don't get along. Toby has carried the torch for Levi even when he's gone out of state to school and 'moved on'. Or is it unrequited?

"You said you wanted me back then. The question now is do you still? Because I'm telling, Toby, I don't know when it happened, but I want you now."

Ms Dawn could have described beautiful vista, had the characters do interesting, fun stuff, I wouldn't have cared. I was so wrapped up in the words and expressions of Levi and the thoughts of Toby. Both characters were so scared for different reasons. Although the story is told from Toby's POV, Levi was an open book. You could feel what he felt, see what Levi saw. But Toby, just has so many issues he needs to work through, and he's scared, unsure and unwilling to give into falling completely in love to let Levi in. Although I'm known to hate over angsty - and the characters are battling with lots of different emotions - the angst doesn't get in the way of the storyline.

I LOVED this author's previous work I read under Riley Hart. She had me engrossed in that story so I had great expectations for this novel. She did not disappoint at all. If you are new to the genre (same-sex), this is a beautiful introduction. It's still got the steamy scenes but not overly into erotica. 5 stars all the way to the Kleenex box.

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I really enjoyed this one. It is the perfect mix of fantasy hookup and real life situations. There's fun times and hardships. It's an in love with my best friends big brother tale and a figure out my life story. ( )