REVIEW: 'Glass Tidings' by Amy Jo Cousins - Benefit Book
Title: Glass Tidings
Author: Amy Jo Cousins
Published: December 5, 2015
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase/Deviant Art
Genre: Erotic Romance; Contemporary Romance
Length: 237 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; HEA; Holiday: Christmas
About Glass Tidings Eddie Rodrigues doesn’t stay in one place long enough to get attached. The only time he broke that rule, things went south fast. Now he’s on the road again, with barely enough cash in his pocket to hop a bus to Texas after his (sort-of-stolen) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Midwest, USA.
He’s fine. He’ll manage. Until he watches that girl get hit by a car and left to die.
Local shop owner Grayson Croft isn’t in the habit of doing people any favors. But even a recluse can’t avoid everyone in a town as small as Clear Lake. And when the cop who played Juliet to your Romeo in the high school play asks you to put up her key witness for the night, you say yes.
Now Gray’s got a grouchy glass artist stomping around his big, empty house, and it turns out that he . . . maybe . . . kind of . . . likes the company.
But Eddie Rodrigues never sticks around.
Unless a Christmas shop owner who hates the season can show an orphan what it means to have family for the holidays.
4 HEART READ
REVIEW:
From its first paragraphs, Amy Jo Cousins’ Glass Tidings wove enchantment over the topic of loneliness. And during the holiday season it’s a perfect time for those who may feel like outcasts to read some cheer.
Grayson has made his life an ode to the family he’s lost and the boyfriend who left him a decade earlier. He likes his grumpy isolation as the man who works only a few months a year at the Christmas Shoppe, which his grandmother left him.
Eddie is a drifter, raised in group homes, who has convinced himself he doesn’t want anyone to know him. And he’s aware he may not be anyone worth knowing.
When Eddie witnesses an accident and Grayson offers temporary shelter, the two men circle one another until they cannot deny they see themselves in one another’s faces.
Only, what is the difference between loneliness and preferring to be alone? Cousins gentle, thorough exploration brings us one gem after another. “He’d spent his entire life refusing to hang on to anything, because no one had ever hung on to him.”
Amy Jo uses clean, simple language. She creates a slowly building drama, whose tension ratcheted as I fell in love with the Eddie and Grayson.
These are folks I know. I’ve faced similar ethical dilemmas. And ultimately, this is Cousins’ genius! Because her characters aren’t just mirrors for each other, but to her readers as well.
After all, at this time of year, beyond the glittering bulbs and the press of interpersonal contact, don’t we all feel a bit like outcasts, longing for what “might be?” I would easily give Amy Jo Cousins’ Glass Tidings 4.5 hearts, if reading platforms would make such realities possible.
A copy of Glass Tidings was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Riptide Publishing, in exchange for our fair and honest opinion.
Don’t miss Kimmers’ Author Interview with Amy where AJ talks about the organization who will benefit from sales of Glass Tidings, gives you a glimpse at the main characters, offers you her top read recommendations….and more.
About the Author
Amy Jo Cousins writes contemporary romance and erotica about smart people finding their own best kind of smexy. She lives in Chicago with her son, where she tweets too much, sometimes runs really far, and waits for the Cubs to win the World Series again.
For other works by Amy Jo visit her website!
