3 out of 5 stars
E-book. 344 pages. Published November 4th 2019 by Riptide Publishing
Blurb:
Customer service has never been this personal.
Robin Christopher, beleaguered retail worker, isn’t having an easy November. His boss is raising stress levels planning a Black Friday to end all Black Fridays, his family doesn’t understand him, and his best friend thinks his new crush is a hallucination brought on by watching too many episodes of Doctor Who.
Archie Levine dresses in Victorian style and divides his time between caring for his young son and creating weird and wacky steampunk gadgets from bits of old junk—when he’s not looking after his mum and trying to keep on good terms with his ex. The last thing he’s got time for is a relationship, but the flustered young man he met while disembowelling a fridge is proving very tempting.
When his mum’s social conscience is roused by a local store with a cavalier attitude to the homeless, former rough sleeper Archie shares her anger. Little does he know that Robin works for that same store. When Archie finds out he’s sleeping with the enemy, things could cut up very rough indeed.
Likes:
- The steampunk.
- Impossible to forget it’s set in England.
- How nice Robin was to the homeless.
- The plague doctor.
Dislikes:
- Never hooked me.
- Took forever for the romance to start.
- Neither Robin nor Archie were particularly interesting.
- Robin’s friends.
- All the assumptions.
- Abrupt ending.
I’ve read and liked other books by J.L. Merrow, which is whyI stuck with this one all the way through despite not being hooked. I kept expecting it to get better, and the second half was more interesting than the first. That’s mostly because it took until the 44% mark for Robin and Archie to actually have a substantial conversation.
I hesitate to call the romance a slow burn, because once Robin and Archie started meeting up regularly, things took off pretty fast. It simply took them forever to actually get to know each other. There were a number of quick meetings between them, but mostly the first half of the book was about their lives. Their perfectly normal, boring, mundane lives.
Most real-life romances are nothing like romance novels. This book feels like all of it could actually happen. While there is a spark of interest on both Archie and Robin’s parts at their first meeting, life gets in the way of them connecting for a while. That wouldn’t have been a problem if there was something interesting going on in their lives. But there isn’t. One of my college creative writing professors used to say “A character must want, and want intensely, even if it’s only for a glass of water.” That’s because the ‘want’ is what drives the story.
But neither Robin nor Archie has a want. They’re both just living their lives. It made the book feel like it was lacking something, and it was – a hook and something to drive the plot forward.
Robin was my favorite of the two men, because of the almost casual way he was nice to the homeless who slept in front of where he worked. Other than that, Robin didn’t stand out much. Archie was the one who had the uniqueness, what with him being a steampunk. His past experiences with homelessness made him sympathetic, but there was a noticeable lack of specifics on that subject, as well as a lack of volunteering or community activism on his part.
I also didn’t like all the assumptions Archie and his mom made about what went into the production of the advertisement they wanted to protest. But it was all the excuses Archie made about how spending time with Robin wasn’t breaking his promise, and how he was in a different place emotionally from the mother of his child that turned me against him. It’s easy for the secondary parent to be ready for a new relationship when his son is only 6 months old. It was easy to see why Bridge was worried that Archie would enter a new relationship and start neglecting his duties as a father.
The fact that Archie was a steampunk was a cool addition to the story. I liked that there was plenty of information in the book about what it meant to be steampunk. Plus, it gave Archie and Robin something to do together.
Normally I’m a big fan of interesting side characters. Unfortunately, like Robin and Archie themselves, I was underwhelmed by the side characters. I thought Heath and Azrah treated Robin like crap, especially when they pushed him out of the Black Friday event planning. Robin’s parents were downright horrid. Even Archie’s mom, who I generally liked, was pushy and manipulative, as well as having her own vendetta against the shop where Robin worked.
One thing I will say about this book is that it’s impossible to forget that it’s set in England. Unlike with other books I’ve read by J.L. Merrow, there’s a lot of English slang throughout the story. I liked it, and it added lots of local flavor. The little sprinkles of pop culture were also nice.
The book’s ending felt strangely abrupt. After such a meandering plot, a lot of stuff both happened and was revealed at the end. Like about Arche’s grandparents, and the identity of the plague doctor. The book basically ends right after Archie and Robin get back together.
Looking back, I should probably have DNFed this book. But I wanted so badly for it to get better. I think if the romance had happened sooner, the book would have worked better for me. As it is, I wouldn’t suggest this book.
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