The Concrete Sky - Marshall Moore

Ladymol's Review:

This book is great fun. It's a roller-coaster ride from a mental institution (where the main character has been sent by his awful brother, Martin, after an accident, which Martin claims was a suicide attempt) to his relationship with a seventeen-year old fellow inmate.

The characters are well drawn and the attraction between the two men, Chad and Jonathon, is very believable.

This book is about redemption through love. Both Chad and Jonathon have awful histories - the kind that break people - and these have to be overcome if they are to find lasting happiness.

There are some nice supporting characters, and the pace never flags.

Cerisaye's Review

Romance is found in the most unlikely place in a gay love story that twists and turns all over the place. It sweeps you along, leaving you guessing right to the end. The writing is immensely readable, stylish and lively, full of black humour and wit without being pretentious. The book manages to be charming yet gives a frighteningly real sense of threat and danger. Essentially character driven, the story plays fast and loose with the reader: expectations and assumptions challanged. As the plot unfolds, the two lovebirds, Chad and Jonathan, find themselves plunged down a deep hole with no easy way out.

Thrown together by circumstances, they try their best to survive in a world that's gone kerplooey, yet they're the ones locked away. The heavy content featuring the hard reality of psych wards, stalking and extreme violence is lightened by great dialogue that jumps off the page and a satisfying gay love story, with just enough erotic detail to satisfy the slash addicted. We get two hotties: charming, indiscreet and morally ambiguous, but so attractive we don't care, because we love them and want them to be together no matter what. And there is a lot of 'what' but I won't go into detail because that would give too much away. Definitely recommended if you like teasing thrillers and male romance and don't mind being made to think about what you're reading

Highly Recommended

Publisher: Harrington Park Press. ISBN: 1560234369

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