REVIEW: 'House of Cards' by Garrett Leigh
Title: House of Cards
Series: Porthkennack #4
Author: Garrett Leigh
Published: July 17, 2017
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Cover Artist: G.D. Leigh/Black Jazz Design
Genre: Erotic Romance; Contemporary Romance
Length: 249 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Bisexual; Comfort/Hurt; Friends to Lovers; Second Chance; Tattoos/Piercings; HEA; Standalone; CW: Infidelity; CW: Off-Page Emotional and Physical Abuse, Suicide Attempts
About House of Cards Calum Hardy’s life has unravelled. Reeling from the betrayal of a man he once loved, he boards a train heading south, with no real idea where he’s going except a world away from London.
Brix Lusmoore can hardly believe his eyes when he spots one of his oldest friends outside Truro station. He hasn’t seen Calum since he fled the capital himself four years ago, harbouring a life-changing secret. But despite the years of silence, their old bond remains, warm and true—and layered with simmering heat they’ve never forgotten.
Calum takes refuge with Brix and a job at his Porthkennack tattoo shop. Bit by bit, he rebuilds his life, but both men carry the ghosts of the past, and it will take more than a rekindled friendship and the magic of the Cornish coast to chase them away.
4 HEART READ
REVIEW:
It’s been a while since I’ve read a romance as realistic as Garrett Leigh’s House of Cards.
Here are two men attracted to one another, but too lost in their own distorted self-images to perceive what’s in front of them.
When Calum walks in on his lover/business partner in bed with another man, he buys a train ticket, not noticing where he’s headed, and trashes his cell phone. It’s not that he’s surprised by the infidelity. He’s devastated with self-loathing for staying in an emotionally and financially abusive relationship. As he later will soon note, “Who needed closure on bullshit what was never real?”
Brix comes across an inebriated Calum at the station near Porthkennack, Brix’s hometown, and recognizes the man who’d been Brix’s tattoo apprentice ten years earlier. Calum informs Brix, “’I’ve just…lost myself, you know? And I don’t know how to get it back.’”
Brix identifies. Four years earlier, he’d fled back from London (where the men were friends) after his own life fell apart.
Calum finds a disconnect in Brix, who lacks compassion for himself, while saving lost souls, including hens headed for slaughter. When Calum asks, Brix explains,
“’Nothing’s ever perfect … It’s a house of cards, nothing more. You can’t count on anything ‘cept yourself, and even that’s a bonehead idea.’”
And here’s where House of Cards is a cut above many romances, where co-dependent characters wish to be rescued, like helpless hens. Brix is well aware everyone must rescue him/herself. As he muses about his often-drunk father, “John could look after himself. The fact that he often didn’t, wasn’t something Brix could fix.”
Sometimes we read erotic romances to be swept away from mundane love. Yet Ms. Leigh finds extraordinary beauty in the ordinary. Or, as Calum thinks of Brix, both men are “made of glass: strong and pure, but fragile.”
In addition, Garrett. Leigh has a true ear for dialect and for place, like when Brix grumbles, “’Dinner’s getting’ cold, and my belly feels like its throat’s been cut.’”
Porthkennack is almost its own character in the story. Brix tells Calum, “’I reckon the world would be a darker place without the souls that keep us warm.’” The town is filled with interesting, quirky characters who deserve to have their own stories told.
This standalone is installment four in Riptide’s Porthkennack series, each written by a different writer. Hint, hint, Ms. Leigh. Can you write a follow-up? Pretty please with blue icing on top?
Once again, I wish I had ½ hearts to grant House of Cards a 4.5.
A copy of House of Cards was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Riptide Publishing, at no cost and with no expectations in return. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
Meet the Author
Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.
Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards. In 2017, she won the EPIC award in contemporary romance with her military novel, Between Ghosts, and the contemporary romance category in the Bisexual Book Awards with her novel What Remains.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.
For more from Garrett be sure and visit her website!
