REVIEW: 'Swann's Revenge' by Shira Anthony
Title: Swann's Revenge
Author: Shira Anthony
Published: February 6, 2018
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 224 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Children; Lawyer; Friends to Lovers; Office Romance; HEA
About Swann's Revenge
Can a swan make peace with his ugly duckling past?
Chubby geek Jimmy Zebulon’s heart broke the day his high school crush, Danny Parker, looked on as his teammates tormented Jimmy. Fifteen years later, Jimmy is long gone, and from his ashes has risen Graham Swann, a movie-star-handsome law firm owner. Graham thinks Jimmy and his past are long forgotten—until attorney Dan Parker shows up for his first day of work.
Getting injured playing college ball was the best thing that ever happened to Dan. It turned his future in a better direction and allowed him to emerge from the closet that trapped him.
Graham wants to believe his childhood dream can come true, but he can’t bring himself to tell Dan who he really is—and their pasts might ruin any chance for a happily ever after….
4 HEART READ
REVIEW:
As Swann’s Revenge opens Shira Anthony takes us to a defining moment in Jimmy, AKA Grahams’s, life fifteen years earlier. One of shame as Danny, the boy he had a crush on in high school stood back and said nothing as the football team ridiculed him. In the same breath we can feel there is something more, something we don’t know about Danny as Jimmy thinks,
“He’d expected scorn, but Jimmy saw something else in Danny’s blue eyes. Pity? Sympathy?”
Fast forward and a chance meeting, no recognition, hot attraction and a racy hookup end in disaster… in more ways than one when Dan ends up being Graham’s new attorney and makes his second bad “first impression”. But perceptions can be deceiving as Dan has many layers yet to be revealed.
When realization dawns for Graham just who Dan really is the memories and the shame come flooding back. But Graham is not the scared, nerdy kid he used to be. He hides behind the mask of a driven businessman with a hot temper. He’s gone from meek to powerhouse while killing his loneliness and pain with easy hookups.
Graham has spent years stifling his urges, his wants and desires, all the fantasies of the life he truly wants. Once he encounters Dan and learns the hurt and turmoil the other man has endured everything starts to change.
As his attraction blooms and the anger is dispelled his recollection of the type of person Dan truly is returns.
Yet every time he thinks he’s ready to open up and reveal is secret, “Jimmy’s” shame returns.
What Graham doesn’t anticipate is Dan’s young daughter. Lacey is a connection who reaches Graham’s heart and opens his eyes to the family he could have - the family he yearns for – and one defining moment will melt a man’s heart of steel.
Once the truth is revealed Graham discovers Dan has a secret he has treasured for fifteen years and two stubborn men with wounds from the past realize that that one day, that one moment all those years ago, actually saved both their lives.
Swann’s Revenge is a lovely slow-burn courtship that is all about the relationship and not all the sex. As these two soulmates slowly get to know each other as co-workers, you watch a friendship blossom into romance. Shira Anthony takes you on a beautiful journey of anger, desire, confusion and love through the vessel of three different hearts.
A copy of Swann’s Revenge was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Dreamspinner Press, at no cost and with no expectations in return. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
Don’t miss Shira’s Guest Post with KEBB where she talks about “scouting the location” for Swann’s Revenge.
If you enjoy Swann's Revenge you might also enjoy Vivien Dean and Rick R. Reed's Stranded with Desire.
Meet the Author
Shira Anthony was a professional opera singer in her last incarnation, performing roles in such operas as Tosca, i Pagliacci, and La Traviata, among others. She’s given up TV for evenings spent with her laptop, and she never goes anywhere without a pile of unread M/M romance on her Kindle. You can hear Shira singing "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca by clicking here: Shira's Singing
Shira loves a great happily-ever-after and never writes a story without one. She's happy to write what her muse tells her, whether it's fantasy, sci fi, paranormal, or contemporary romance. She particularly loves writing series, because she thinks of her characters as old friends and she wants to visit them even after their stories are told.
In real life, Shira sang professionally for 14 years, and she currently works as a public sector attorney advocating for children. She's happy to have made writing her second full-time job, even if it means she rarely has time to watch TV or go to the movies. Shira writes about the things she knows and loves, whether it's music and musicians, the ocean, or the places she's lived or traveled to. She spent her middle school years living in France, and tries to visit as often as she can.
Shira and her husband spend as many weekends as they can aboard their 36' catamaran sailboat, Land's Zen, at the Carolina Coast. Not only has sailing inspired her to write about pirates and mermen, her sailboat is her favorite place to write. And although the only mermen she's found to date are in her own imagination, she keeps a sharp lookout for them when she's on the water.
For more from Shira be sure and visit her website!
