Most people think riot squad officer Taylor Jameson is an asshole. Little do they know his apparent indifference stems from having a meddlesome family always butting into his business. And little does Taylor know he’s about to stumble into a situation that’ll make indifference impossible.
When everything goes horribly wrong at a political rally on a harbour ferry, Taylor encounters Sietta Salisbury. The son of a wealthy politician, Sietta is a revered—but presumed dead—musician, and an enigma who is so strange, Taylor is compelled to look into his background. What he discovers draws him into a bizarre mess of prisoners, politics, and attempted murder that makes him realise what he’s been missing.
Falling in love isn’t hard. Trying to convince someone else you’re worth loving despite your crazy family and the people trying to kill you? That’s a whole other can of worms.
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Dreamspinner Press
AngstyG
potentially book 1 of a series
Contemporary
M/M
Gay
236 e-book pages
3rd person
Rating: ??????
Ratings are 1 to 5 stars and based mostly on GoodReads standards.
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Review:
Fishy Riot is a debut novel and an entertaining start to what is potentially a new series.
Set in Australia, we dive head first into the life-n-times of riot squad officer Taylor Jameson whose wacky family dynamics include his identical twin brother and a handful of other siblings. We’re along for the ride as he meets, becomes enthralled with, and then falls for a protectee with a dark and twisted past.
This book in part read as White Knight Saves The Abused Prince with the main love interest, Sietta, and his younger brother escaping the worst home life my own nightmares could never have ever dreamed up. It was brutal, twisted, and one of the cruelest scenarios I think I’ve ever read.
Then too, the story has serious leanings toward comedy with Taylor’s family dynamics and his personality as a smartass, take-no-bullshit riot squad officer who has a serious co-dependency with his identical twin brother, Clay. The way everything about these twins was so closely intertwined, and the way they played off of each other was kind of WOAH. I can’t say a whole lot about that because I’m an only child — sibling relationships in any combination tend to confound me. But I feel like I was supposed to be shocked into fits of giggles over Taylor’s overly intrusive family. And maybe a lot of people will be. For me, though, this was a whole lot like a family reunion with one big branch of my family tree. Which…yeah. It was funny; I laughed a few times. But I can’t say that any of it felt over the top…kinda tame in comparison to some of the mayhem my family cooks up.
The mashup of seriousness and comedy did not always work for me. While light moments were definitely needed to lift me out of darkness, gotta say that sometimes the humor felt a bit like ill-timed diversions from getting to the heart of the two main characters. As much as I loved Sietta’s wry sense of humor he felt way too well-adjusted for the host of traumas from his horrific, abusive past that he’d just been rescued from. Not that I wanted him to suffer more or that I was particularly in the mood to dive into a host of psychological ramifications from such an abominable situation…just that he was far too okay too soon for my credibility meter. And it may be that I feel like his problems were brushed off a bit too easily with humor.
While I don’t have any lingering questions, I didn’t get the feeling of a solid ending. More like the story just sort of faded out for now. There’s no cliffhanger, no loose ends I can name, just……. Which, I don’t know. I think I either needed to feel some sort of stronger finality or a Big Question — something that made it okay to walk away or leave me clamoring for more.
The steam level is relatively low with sex on hold until way late in the game; just an observation because I’m okay with pretty much any heat level. The intimacy is sweet but grows at rocket speed — as does trust. And living together — which, sure because Circumstances demand it.
So I think I’m finally pinpointing in all my ramblings why this story wasn’t a big home run for me. Because all these pieces of wacky family, rapid-pace trust, intimacy, horrors of abuse, comedy, etc. and etc. are A LOT to combine and HARD to pull off and make cohesive. Yes, the premise was intriguing and promising, but it just didn’t all fit together in as clear a picture as I’d hoped.
Advance Review Copy generously provided by the publisher.
Purchase Links:
Dreamspinner | Amazon | BN | GooglePlay |KOBO
About the Author:
LINDSEY BLACK lives in Darwin, Australia, where the weather report permanently reads ‘humidity at 100%, only going to get worse’ for ten months of the year and ‘monsoon at 4:00 p.m. for exactly fifteen minutes’ for the remaining two. Between teaching and studying full-time, she escapes this oppressive environment to bushwalk for weeks on end wherever the mobile phone reception has zero bars for as long as possible and the weather report reads something along the lines of ‘blizzard likely.’ She enjoys martial arts, music, and mayhem, which explains the untidy state of her home where she attempts to write while splitting her minimal amounts of spare time between her incredulous husband, lazy Chinchilla cat, and crazed Siberian husky. If you expect her to sit and have a chat, it’s best to have a matcha green tea latte with almond milk on hand and your hiking boots within reach. Oh, and be sure to bring a guitar for impromptu jam sessions.