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Bus Stop
When Benny and Stuart first meet on the bus, it seems like they have nothing in common. Stuart is an up-and-coming ad agency rep. Benny drives a bus Stuart takes when he's too drunk to get behind the wheel. Benny's a doting father to a little girl who's his whole world. Stuart's not sure he ever wants kids.
Despite their differences, their shared circumstances bind them together. Benny and Stuart are both expecting unplanned children with women they don't love. They've both spent too much time hiding from their true selves. And now that they're being forced to face who they are, they can't deny the attraction growing between them-an attraction that quickly deepens into something more.
Both men know the timing is wrong, and the path to any sort of future together is fraught with fear, pain, and some very difficult questions: How can they leave their pregnant spouses with integrity? How can Benny carry on an affair that might cost him his daughter, the brightest spot in his life? Can Stuart really turn his back on the comfort of the society life he's been living with his girlfriend? But ultimately, only one question really counts: How can they go back to the lives they lived before when they've seen just how good love can be?
Despite their differences, their shared circumstances bind them together. Benny and Stuart are both expecting unplanned children with women they don't love. They've both spent too much time hiding from their true selves. And now that they're being forced to face who they are, they can't deny the attraction growing between them-an attraction that quickly deepens into something more.
Both men know the timing is wrong, and the path to any sort of future together is fraught with fear, pain, and some very difficult questions: How can they leave their pregnant spouses with integrity? How can Benny carry on an affair that might cost him his daughter, the brightest spot in his life? Can Stuart really turn his back on the comfort of the society life he's been living with his girlfriend? But ultimately, only one question really counts: How can they go back to the lives they lived before when they've seen just how good love can be?
350 pages, ebook
First published July 22, 2012
About the author
Anne Dudley
11 books3 followersAnne Dudley has always had a dream of writing and having her work published. What got her dream off the ground was meeting two men who tried to make their love work despite all odds. The love between them lit a fire in her and prompted her to pursue her dream of writing so she could capture the beauty of two men together. To her, there is nothing more beautiful than two men in love and watching two men express that love, physically and emotionally.
Anne lives in Texas and works in the medical field. Her favorite form of relaxation is going on cruises and then heading off to Glacier Park, Montana, to stare at the mountains. Preferably with a glass of red wine in hand. Good food, good company, and a Friday night reading and writing about men are the best ways to start the weekend. There's nothing better than typing away on a new story with twenty pounds of purring orange cat in your lap.
Visit Anne's blog at http://anne_dudley.livejournal.com.
Anne lives in Texas and works in the medical field. Her favorite form of relaxation is going on cruises and then heading off to Glacier Park, Montana, to stare at the mountains. Preferably with a glass of red wine in hand. Good food, good company, and a Friday night reading and writing about men are the best ways to start the weekend. There's nothing better than typing away on a new story with twenty pounds of purring orange cat in your lap.
Visit Anne's blog at http://anne_dudley.livejournal.com.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 31, 2012
I'm going to write a lot about this one! Which I haven't been doing lately, but this book inspires me. It obviously pushes a lot of hot buttons for me.
What I liked most about this book is the genuine, life-like relationship between Benny and Stuart, and the undeniable love that grows between them that felt real to me. I've been looking for a book like this, with a deep, passionate, needful, almost desperate love that will not be denied. (Part of that is the way emotion in Bus Stop has this wonderful cutting edge to it. I really felt Benny's conflicts, his fears and indecision, how it was all tearing him apart, and I felt the flaring need that binds man to man so that Benny and Stuart just couldn't live without each other. I don't read many gay romances with that kind of raw, exceptional feeling that just pulls you right into the book.)
What I liked second best was the unrelenting realism. I read so many male/male books that seem to exist in a sort of fairy tale universe; I read and enjoy, but then I forget because those books don't really reflect life as I know it.
Bus Stop is different because it takes on some extremely difficult subjects and pretty much examines them in realistic ways while still keeping this a solid gay romance with a HEA. I mean, not only are both men in relationships with women, but each woman is *pregnant*! I can hardly imagine that the author set up that scenario, it's so incredibly hard to get the characters through it. Oh, we pretty much know we're going to have some kind of happy ending, and we do (if we hadn't, you would have heard me screaming all over the world!), but the road is long, rocky, so difficult, and there are people genuinely hurt along the way. They pick up their lives and go on, but this is life, isn't it? We make bad decisions, we get hurt, and sometimes we have the courage to get ourselves out of bad situations.
The affair that Benny and Stuart conduct with each other before ending their relationships with the women might look like a stumbling block for readers, but it opens up the storyline and the plot to some incredible depths that are just so unusual in today's gay romance novels. I don't really like infidelity either, if it's treated cavalierly, or if the woman is a cardboard villain easy to hate and we can "justify" the cheating. Here, everybody's fooling themselves, aren't they? The women are not in touch with their real feelings or the real situation as much as the men are not. The men feel their misery and eventually act to make their lives better; Cathy seems happy to just continue to inflict more pain on herself and her husband, Benny, and Lauren just seems to want to hold herself above it all and not experience emotion at all. Certainly there's no sense that she's passionate about Stuart in any way. The plotline of Bus Stop forces all four characters to confront reality and make changes that, in the end, improve life for all of them.
I don't feel as if the men act without a lot of pain in breaking up their marriage/relationship with the women. The story takes place over many months, almost a year, I think, (well, it certainly follows the course of the pregnancies, anyway), and both Benny and Stuart do a lot of soul searching. It starts even before they meet, as we see both of them coming to realize they really would rather be with a man than a woman, and especially we see how miserable Benny is. Then they meet, and even the friendship is tentative, as they hesitate to reveal much emotion to this chance-met, almost-a-stranger. But then they really do become friends, and eventually the attraction between them flares up and is acted on. (Really hot sex scenes in cars, for instance, especially the one where Stuart drives to an empty parking garage in the city.)
I feel as if Benny had just a sham of a marriage, anyway, with Cathy obviously tricking him into it by getting pregnant the first time and there being a lot of pain in their day-to-day interactions. Ideally, Benny should have left her and *then* taken up with Stuart; that's the way to conduct yourself with integrity. Likewise, Stuart should have moved out of Lauren's house first and *then* started a relationship with Benny. But.... This is above all a realistic book, and people just aren't that smart, or self-controlled, or idealistic. They succumb to passion, and to their own pain as they reach out for something good to smother the hurt, and it takes a while for them to come to understand that their existing relationships just don't work and cannot be salvaged.
The third thing I liked best about Bus Stop is Benny's six-year-old daughter, Sandra. Wow! I don't know that I've read a child character so well-portrayed. Benny's love for her just broke my heart, and I was terrified, along with him, that his need for Stuart and his need to end the marriage with Cathy would take his daughter away from him.
If I had one complaint, it would be that at the end, I thought Cathy would have been more hateful to Benny than she eventually is. Not that she's nice, and not that she doesn't make him suffer, because she's not nice and she does make him suffer. But I sort of thought it would take a bit longer for her to come to a grudging acceptance.
I haven't read a book like this in a long time, with the kind of love and need that I basically am always searching for in gay romance, right alongside a realistic view of how hard it is for the men to change the world in order to make their relationship work. Bus Stop is sophisticated, in my view. Definitely five stars.
What I liked most about this book is the genuine, life-like relationship between Benny and Stuart, and the undeniable love that grows between them that felt real to me. I've been looking for a book like this, with a deep, passionate, needful, almost desperate love that will not be denied. (Part of that is the way emotion in Bus Stop has this wonderful cutting edge to it. I really felt Benny's conflicts, his fears and indecision, how it was all tearing him apart, and I felt the flaring need that binds man to man so that Benny and Stuart just couldn't live without each other. I don't read many gay romances with that kind of raw, exceptional feeling that just pulls you right into the book.)
What I liked second best was the unrelenting realism. I read so many male/male books that seem to exist in a sort of fairy tale universe; I read and enjoy, but then I forget because those books don't really reflect life as I know it.
Bus Stop is different because it takes on some extremely difficult subjects and pretty much examines them in realistic ways while still keeping this a solid gay romance with a HEA. I mean, not only are both men in relationships with women, but each woman is *pregnant*! I can hardly imagine that the author set up that scenario, it's so incredibly hard to get the characters through it. Oh, we pretty much know we're going to have some kind of happy ending, and we do (if we hadn't, you would have heard me screaming all over the world!), but the road is long, rocky, so difficult, and there are people genuinely hurt along the way. They pick up their lives and go on, but this is life, isn't it? We make bad decisions, we get hurt, and sometimes we have the courage to get ourselves out of bad situations.
The affair that Benny and Stuart conduct with each other before ending their relationships with the women might look like a stumbling block for readers, but it opens up the storyline and the plot to some incredible depths that are just so unusual in today's gay romance novels. I don't really like infidelity either, if it's treated cavalierly, or if the woman is a cardboard villain easy to hate and we can "justify" the cheating. Here, everybody's fooling themselves, aren't they? The women are not in touch with their real feelings or the real situation as much as the men are not. The men feel their misery and eventually act to make their lives better; Cathy seems happy to just continue to inflict more pain on herself and her husband, Benny, and Lauren just seems to want to hold herself above it all and not experience emotion at all. Certainly there's no sense that she's passionate about Stuart in any way. The plotline of Bus Stop forces all four characters to confront reality and make changes that, in the end, improve life for all of them.
I don't feel as if the men act without a lot of pain in breaking up their marriage/relationship with the women. The story takes place over many months, almost a year, I think, (well, it certainly follows the course of the pregnancies, anyway), and both Benny and Stuart do a lot of soul searching. It starts even before they meet, as we see both of them coming to realize they really would rather be with a man than a woman, and especially we see how miserable Benny is. Then they meet, and even the friendship is tentative, as they hesitate to reveal much emotion to this chance-met, almost-a-stranger. But then they really do become friends, and eventually the attraction between them flares up and is acted on. (Really hot sex scenes in cars, for instance, especially the one where Stuart drives to an empty parking garage in the city.)
I feel as if Benny had just a sham of a marriage, anyway, with Cathy obviously tricking him into it by getting pregnant the first time and there being a lot of pain in their day-to-day interactions. Ideally, Benny should have left her and *then* taken up with Stuart; that's the way to conduct yourself with integrity. Likewise, Stuart should have moved out of Lauren's house first and *then* started a relationship with Benny. But.... This is above all a realistic book, and people just aren't that smart, or self-controlled, or idealistic. They succumb to passion, and to their own pain as they reach out for something good to smother the hurt, and it takes a while for them to come to understand that their existing relationships just don't work and cannot be salvaged.
The third thing I liked best about Bus Stop is Benny's six-year-old daughter, Sandra. Wow! I don't know that I've read a child character so well-portrayed. Benny's love for her just broke my heart, and I was terrified, along with him, that his need for Stuart and his need to end the marriage with Cathy would take his daughter away from him.
If I had one complaint, it would be that at the end, I thought Cathy would have been more hateful to Benny than she eventually is. Not that she's nice, and not that she doesn't make him suffer, because she's not nice and she does make him suffer. But I sort of thought it would take a bit longer for her to come to a grudging acceptance.
I haven't read a book like this in a long time, with the kind of love and need that I basically am always searching for in gay romance, right alongside a realistic view of how hard it is for the men to change the world in order to make their relationship work. Bus Stop is sophisticated, in my view. Definitely five stars.
July 26, 2012
This whole review is one giant spoiler so beware. Let me address the cheating first. It wasn't easy to watch. (To be fair,the blurb spells it out quite clearly) I spent half the book screaming at the MCs for their selfishness and cowardice and the other half crying for them for the lives they were trapped in. I think both men felt shame and guilt for the way they were treating the women in their lives but felt helpless to make it better. No one deserves to be lied to and tricked and certainly no one should be cheated on however,I don't think either MC cavalierly started an affair. (Benny was tricked as well. I don't believe for a second that Sandra wasn't a ploy to force Benny to marry Cathy.) But no one should have to live a lie either and the only way to satisfy the women was to continue with the lie. It doesn't surprise me that Benny was more interested in his daughter's feelings than his wife's. He didn't want to loose his child; the wife was going to be hurt either way. If he stayed, she would never have all of him. It didn't seem like she was very happy with him even before she found out she was pregnant; her closet of household items showed that she was making plans to be alone long before she found out. (and no, I'm not justifying the cheating by saying that)This book is going to get a lot of negativity thrown at it because of the cheating. But if I take a step back, I can picture these men living in my town. Their problems were realistic; their actions were realistic. Cathy was portrayed as an angry, hurt woman but was never relegated to the role of villain which I appreciate.(Lauren was a little flat;she was a stumbling block but didn't feel like a real person) People make bad choices, they hurt one another, they cheat and lie. It happens. And so does forgiveness. And so does learning to live with the consequences. If we are going to talk about honesty, where exactly should it have begun? It's a very fine and arbitrary line imo because in a perfect world Benny would never have dated Cathy in the first place. This wasn't an easy read. But I fell so deeply into the story, I felt like I was fighting my way out of cotton when I had to put the book down to take care of my family. Really should be a 5 star but the epilogue was too much. Too tidy and jarred with the rest of the book. Then again, I generally hate epilogues anyway.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2012
I do not have much problem with cheating. But what I do not swallow is the attitude that if they are happy then that's fine, let it go. Neither of them shows that it regretted the actions that hurt the mothers of their children, especially Benny, who is concerned only if his wife goes off their daughters. My God he cheated on her when she is pregnant and he only thinks of him.
April 16, 2019
This is a hard review to write as having just finished reading,I feel like I've been put through a wringer! The product description itself let's you know that this is not going to be a barrel of laughs nor is it your typical m/m erotic romance. What it is ,is a book that you want to pass on straight away to somebody and then say "Oh god, what did you think and did it have your emotions in as much turmoil as mine?".l was very lucky to have been brought up by parents who taught me that intolerance, racism and bigotry are three of the worst words in the English language! I believe every person has the right to love and be with whoever they choose , regardless of gender, religion or skin colour. In this story it is society's prejudice against homosexuality that causes two men to live a lie for most of their lives and the fallout that occurs not only damages them but the people they become involved with, the product information gives a good synopsis of the basic story but it is so much more than that!The attraction between Benny and Stuart when they meet on Bennys bus is mutual and from then on to the end 'Bus Stop ' becomes both a compelling and unrelenting read you won't be able to put down!This story is not just centred on the two male leads as both the women feature just as heavily and we see how the affair between the men causes pain and heartbreak to all concerned, including little Sandra ( Bennys 6 year old daughter, and the light of his life ) who is like a lot of children who get caught between two warring parents ,unable to understand why mummy and daddy are so angry and sad! Your feelings will see saw, one moment disliking Cathy or Lauren for being bitchy and possessive then feeling really sorry for them when the men start to lie or do something selfish or insensitive because of their intense feelings for each other , and vice versa for the guys, especially Benny who gets berated constantly not only from Cathy who begins to suspect he is having an affair, thinking its with another woman, but also from her close family members who she complains to. Nobody is blameless in this tale and that's what makes it ring true. The scenes between Benny and Stuart are electric, combustible and raw as well as sweet and tender. I felt and lived every emotion they went through and at times wanted to either slap some sense into them or when things got really emotional, give them a big comforting 'don't worry things can only get better ' hug. Yes, there are sex scenes (beautifully portrayed) but unlike a lot of m/m romances they are not there to titillate but are crucial to the relationship that we see start as attraction, move on to lust and grow into an all consuming love.This was obviously a labour of love for Anne Dudley and it shows. I think it may be her debut , if so bravo! I LOVED this novel, how will it make you feel? Read it and see. Wow!
August 11, 2013
Bus Stop tells the story of two closeted gay men, both of whom are in relationships with women at the beginning of the story, who find each other and start a journey toward living the lives that they were supposed to live. Benny, a city bus driver, is trapped in a miserable marriage with one daughter and another child on the way. He got married in the first place because he was too weak to withstand the pressure that various people placed on him to do so, and he stayed married because he was too weak to be honest about the fact that he was gay. Stuart, an ad executive, is living with his girlfriend, and he is struggling, as well, with the reality that he is gay when she tells him that she, too, is pregnant. Stuart and Benny had already encountered each other on the bus once before, made serious eye contact, and left it at that, but when Stuart learned about his girlfriend's news, fate intervened, and put him back on Benny's bus once again -- stinking drunk, and in total despair. This begins a friendship that -- in a very slow burn -- turns into a desperate affair that is marked by shame about their lies and their mutual cowardice, fear over getting caught, terror over losing each other, and confusion about everything. As the months pass and each woman moves closer to her due date, Benny and Stuart's affair becomes increasingly intense, until they are finally forced to make some choices about honor, honesty, and having fully-realized lives that are defined by a love that they can only have with each other.
This is a good book, but it's a hard book, for a variety of reasons. If you cannot stomach an adultery plot, this book isn't for you. If you can, you might find the characters' total spinelessness for much of the novel very off-putting. These guys probably live in 2009/2010 Chicago -- coming out would have been a challenge, but it shouldn't have been that much of a challenge. Especially when knowing that the alternative was slowly sucking the life out of both of them. Also, there were some fairly unrealistic fears about . My critiques notwithstanding, this was a really good book that rewards the patient reader (and I have to emphasize patience -- the book is slow, and some of the dilemmas become repetitive. But that was pretty realistic, especially for characters who were as closeted as these two were, and who were as passive about their fates and willing to hide their heads in the sand for as long as they possibly could. The pace of the novel was consistent with the nature of their personalities.).
This is a good book, but it's a hard book, for a variety of reasons. If you cannot stomach an adultery plot, this book isn't for you. If you can, you might find the characters' total spinelessness for much of the novel very off-putting. These guys probably live in 2009/2010 Chicago -- coming out would have been a challenge, but it shouldn't have been that much of a challenge. Especially when knowing that the alternative was slowly sucking the life out of both of them. Also, there were some fairly unrealistic fears about . My critiques notwithstanding, this was a really good book that rewards the patient reader (and I have to emphasize patience -- the book is slow, and some of the dilemmas become repetitive. But that was pretty realistic, especially for characters who were as closeted as these two were, and who were as passive about their fates and willing to hide their heads in the sand for as long as they possibly could. The pace of the novel was consistent with the nature of their personalities.).
August 29, 2012
Oh my goodness! What to say about this excellant book? Wow!! I'm not an angst person, I like my fics fluffy and sweet, with a garunteed happy ending, but every now and then, I step out of my comfort zone and pick something that I normally wouldn't. I'm so glad that I did with this book.
First off, this could be a spoiler, but it's important to note. No one wins, really. Sure the guys end up with each other, and are in crazy love, but what a price to pay. I'm certain that this book is pretty true to life, and that there are men, and women, who have been in this situation. It's heartbreaking for all parties. I think this author did an amazing job with these characters. They felt so real to me, and their pain as well, right down to the little girl too.
In a perfect world, no one would have to "cheat" or lie or hide who they are, but alas, our society isn't built that way. I have to commend the men for living true, knowing what it would have, or could have, cost them. They could have lost everything, and lost themselves too. Breaks my heart.
I do have to say that the physical interactions between the two men were off the charts hot! Yeah. But there was always some kind of angst involved, especially for Benny. He wasn't leading with his dick and forgetting everything else. He seemed to fight it as much as he could, but then he'd let himself go, let Stuart have all of him, and then when it was all said and done, he was back to angsting over what he'd done. He was constantly at war with himself. How exhausting that is, and I was right there with him feeling the same.
Benny certainly wasn't a warm and fuzzy guy. At times he was a down right bastard, not only to his wife, but to Stuart as well. I sometimes wondered why Stuart stuck it out, but the heart knows what and who it wants.
I didn't get overly invested with the women as I knew this story was more about the men and their journey, but I did feel for them, and what they went through.
Kudos to this author for tackling a very difficult and emotional subject, and putting it to word. The reviews for this kind of story are going to be as varied as the people reading it. I'm giving it 5 stars, even though this is not my kind of reading. I'm glad I went there. I may have to add more of this kind of story to my reading list.
I'd definitely would recommend this book to be read.
First off, this could be a spoiler, but it's important to note. No one wins, really. Sure the guys end up with each other, and are in crazy love, but what a price to pay. I'm certain that this book is pretty true to life, and that there are men, and women, who have been in this situation. It's heartbreaking for all parties. I think this author did an amazing job with these characters. They felt so real to me, and their pain as well, right down to the little girl too.
In a perfect world, no one would have to "cheat" or lie or hide who they are, but alas, our society isn't built that way. I have to commend the men for living true, knowing what it would have, or could have, cost them. They could have lost everything, and lost themselves too. Breaks my heart.
I do have to say that the physical interactions between the two men were off the charts hot! Yeah. But there was always some kind of angst involved, especially for Benny. He wasn't leading with his dick and forgetting everything else. He seemed to fight it as much as he could, but then he'd let himself go, let Stuart have all of him, and then when it was all said and done, he was back to angsting over what he'd done. He was constantly at war with himself. How exhausting that is, and I was right there with him feeling the same.
Benny certainly wasn't a warm and fuzzy guy. At times he was a down right bastard, not only to his wife, but to Stuart as well. I sometimes wondered why Stuart stuck it out, but the heart knows what and who it wants.
I didn't get overly invested with the women as I knew this story was more about the men and their journey, but I did feel for them, and what they went through.
Kudos to this author for tackling a very difficult and emotional subject, and putting it to word. The reviews for this kind of story are going to be as varied as the people reading it. I'm giving it 5 stars, even though this is not my kind of reading. I'm glad I went there. I may have to add more of this kind of story to my reading list.
I'd definitely would recommend this book to be read.
March 22, 2013
I really liked this. Even though the premise is two men cheating on their pregnant wife and girlfriend.
Don't get me wrong, what Stuart and Benny did was really shitty, but Dudley didn't make light of the situation. Neither man were particularly callous and they knew what they were doing was wrong. But while is does take two to tango, I found Stuart a bit more culpable in their arrangement. He really did kind of set their whole affair in motion. Unlike Benny, I felt like Stuart wasn't all that remorseful and that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. With Benny, you got that angst and anguish and the questioning whether or not he should put his family back together regardless of what he wants.
Speaking of family, where were Stuart and Benny's? Benny's brother is mentioned in the beginning for being the matchmaker and setting up Cathy and Benny, but then he's never really heard about after. Benny was so afraid of being gay to his family, I was surprised his brother didn't reappear to give his two cents. Being that Stuart is an only child, what would his parents have said? Cathy's family had all these opinions prior to Benny coming out, but are noticeably absent after. While I usually hate opinions from the peanut gallery, since it was made such big deal before, it would've added some nice drama to have their reactions.
I thought Cathy and Lauren took the news of the affair a bit too well. Their reactions were a lot tamer than what I was expecting. I expected Cathy to be spiteful and punish Benny through the kids, but I'm glad she didn't in the longrun. Lauren's devious plan might have been the part of the book I enjoyed the most. It was super sneaky, and smart, and I loved it.
While I'm no native of Chicago and thus couldn't tell you the first thing about their dialect, I thought the way Benny spoke was very southern. In my head I had him speaking with a bit of a Texan twang. Toward the end, I thought Stuarts voice changed from "proper" to a little twangy itself to the point where I couldn't tell the difference between his voice and Benny's.
I'm glad I picked this book to read. If cheating in the romance genre isn't your thing, I'd skip it. But I think Dudley does a good job telling a story where none of the characters are perfect and there's still a happy ending.
4 Stars.
Don't get me wrong, what Stuart and Benny did was really shitty, but Dudley didn't make light of the situation. Neither man were particularly callous and they knew what they were doing was wrong. But while is does take two to tango, I found Stuart a bit more culpable in their arrangement. He really did kind of set their whole affair in motion. Unlike Benny, I felt like Stuart wasn't all that remorseful and that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. With Benny, you got that angst and anguish and the questioning whether or not he should put his family back together regardless of what he wants.
Speaking of family, where were Stuart and Benny's? Benny's brother is mentioned in the beginning for being the matchmaker and setting up Cathy and Benny, but then he's never really heard about after. Benny was so afraid of being gay to his family, I was surprised his brother didn't reappear to give his two cents. Being that Stuart is an only child, what would his parents have said? Cathy's family had all these opinions prior to Benny coming out, but are noticeably absent after. While I usually hate opinions from the peanut gallery, since it was made such big deal before, it would've added some nice drama to have their reactions.
I thought Cathy and Lauren took the news of the affair a bit too well. Their reactions were a lot tamer than what I was expecting. I expected Cathy to be spiteful and punish Benny through the kids, but I'm glad she didn't in the longrun. Lauren's devious plan might have been the part of the book I enjoyed the most. It was super sneaky, and smart, and I loved it.
While I'm no native of Chicago and thus couldn't tell you the first thing about their dialect, I thought the way Benny spoke was very southern. In my head I had him speaking with a bit of a Texan twang. Toward the end, I thought Stuarts voice changed from "proper" to a little twangy itself to the point where I couldn't tell the difference between his voice and Benny's.
I'm glad I picked this book to read. If cheating in the romance genre isn't your thing, I'd skip it. But I think Dudley does a good job telling a story where none of the characters are perfect and there's still a happy ending.
4 Stars.
September 8, 2012
Fabulous novel. A perfect read. I found myself vocally interacting the the characters all throughout this novel. I yelled at Stuart for some of some of the crazy things he did like having Benny come over to his house while Lauren was on vacation, and I cried when the babies were born. This novel was great because of how realistic the characters personalities and reactions were to all the difficult challenges they faced. Both characters were imperfect and they had to acknowledge that fact several times throughout the story, especially the fact that they were both not ready to come out to the world and their families as being gay. I know that some readers will be turned off by the fact that they were both cheating on their partners. I think the author did a good job of explaining the situation. I felt like Stuart was the only one who was really being deceptive. I was sorry for Benny and I felt that he desperately needed to get away from his manipulative wife and her judgmental family. I loved this family and I loved the kids. This is one of those stories that you wish would not end, but when it did end, it was in the best way possible. Great job to Anne Dudley. I am so glad that I bought this book.
November 25, 2013
This was a hard read but very well written.
April 15, 2014
M'eh.
June 3, 2014
4.5*stars
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews