REVIEW: 'Dream' by Garrett Leigh
Title: Dream
Series: Skins #1
Author: Garrett Leigh
Published: January 23, 2018
Publisher: Self-Published/Fox Love Press
Cover Artist: GD Leigh/Black Jazz Design
Cover Photo: Dan Burgess/Moonstock Photography
Genre: Contemporary Romance; Erotic Romance
Length: 244 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Angst; Comfort/Hurt; Disorder; Family Drama; HEA; Mild Kink: Edging, Spanking, Bondage
About Dream
I can’t sleep…
When unrequited love leaves Dylan Hart sleepless and nursing his wounds, instinct draws him to the one place he's found mindless respite in the past—Lovato’s. It’s a place for every fantasy — for crazy-hot encounters — where a night of insane NSA sex brings relief to Dylan’s fragile feelings.
It should be a perfect escape, and for one magical night it seems that way, but then worlds collide, and reality bites when his hookup desperately needs a friend. Surely Dylan can’t trust his instincts when friendship has bruised his heart so badly before?
It’s burying me alive…
The deck is stacked against former ballet dancer Angelo Giordano ever finding real love. At least visiting Lovato’s offers respite from a life defined by illness; a glimmer of light in the dull grey of his so-called life without dance. But then he encounters Dylan — a glorious ray of the brightest sunshine — who makes his heart pound once more with purpose.
Angelo’s mind is blown by this man, but the disease that ended his career won’t let him bask in new love. He’s drowning, and Dylan can’t save him while insecurities swamp them both. The only way to make it means confronting their demons.
If Dylan can turn his back on the past, and Angelo can face his uncertain future, maybe they can chase their dreams together.
5 HEART READ
REVIEW:
Though it’s merely January I’m betting Garrett Leigh’s Dream will remain at the top of my 2018 winner’s list. Every once in a great while, an author paints a target on your heart, pulls her quiver and sends you a personal bulls-eye. But more on that later.
To make a clean break from his ex, Dylan dons a blindfold, leaving his “club” one hour later blissfully debauched. However, neither he, nor the “stranger” is thrilled days later, when Angelo recognizes Dylan while seeking debt advice at the government agency where Dylan works.
Angelo’s situation confuses Dylan. Why give up a lucrative and satisfying ballet career to manage the family failing deli, when it could be sold for profit? Nor does he understand why Angelo’s personal finances are a hot mess.
Excellent dialogue stirs our curiosity. Rather than reveal how his career jettisoned, Angelo tells Dylan, “‘I’m past it now.’” Dylan counters, “’Past it? Too old you mean.’” “’Something like that,’” Angelo replies… to which Leigh adds, “Angelo’s dark gaze flashed with an emotion that cut Dylan to the bone, but it faded fast, like it had never been there at all, and he broke the spell by tapping his elegant fingers on the desk.”
Dylan, the inveterate do-gooder, has explosive chemistry with Angelo, who seems to run himself ragged managing the family business. Why don’t Angelo’s mom or uncle help out? Why does Angelo suddenly push Dylan away?
We admire Leigh’s flawed heroes for simply managing each day with a modicum of dignity, continuing to care about their responsibilities despite the heavy backpack of stress each carries.
They bond because, despite their best efforts, the world unfairly prevents them from protecting those they’re entrusted to help. And we are left to wonder who will take care of Dylan, ever the caretaker for others?
Dream’s pace and arc evoke its title. Dylan and Angelo’s first meeting is pure fantasy. Then the men are bewildered by happenstance encounters. Is this fate? Just like love can seem to be the twilight between awake and sleep, readers are drawn into Dylan and Angelo’s gradual bond as we might a welcoming mattress.
Those who have ever been in love will understand Leigh’s apt descriptions of attraction. “His skin belonged to them and not him, like he couldn’t breathe until he touched them again,” Dylan thinks. Later Angelo asks him, “’Do I make your heart feel like it’s stuck on a spinning top?’”
And now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I’m not a neutral reader. I share Angelo’s illness, and am well acquainted with his mind and body’s betrayal, with its alternating days of success and failure. Yet I could never master language to convey to a doctor. Now I’ve highlighted Leigh’s passages to do so. “He dropped his head again and fell into the kind of doze unique to the illness that was burying him alive.”
I equally share Dylan’s anxiety, which he accurately describes to Angelo, “’My brain works a million miles an hour, and sometimes I can’t catch it before it’s fallen off a cliff, you know? … Angsting over shit is like an addiction sometimes. I know I’m not doing any good, but I can’t stop.’”
I rooted as Angelo and Dylan rallied one another, and thus came to recognize their own effectiveness, against all odds.
And secretly, Garrett Leigh’s Dream allowed me to appreciate my own blemished, yet occasionally useful interventions on behalf of others.
In my opinion, through character growth, great writing helps you accept yourself. Thank you for the therapy, Ms. Leigh, and when is my next session? I mean, when is the next installment due?
A copy of Dream was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Signal Boost Promotions, at no cost and with no expectations in return. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
Amazon/KU
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.
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 renowned LGBTAQ+ photographer Dan Burgess.
For more from Garrett be sure and visit her website!
