Title: How to Save a Life (The Haven / Book 1)
Author: Sloan Parker
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Publisher: Self Published
Buy link: Amazon.com (Second Edition)
Genre: M/M Contemporary Romance / Mystery / Suspense
Length: Long Novel
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 rating stars
A Guest Review by Raine
Summary Review: An over excited plot and deliberately out of balance characters interfered with the flow of this story for me.
Blurb: Reporter Kevin Price has a knack for tripping over his own feet. And everyone else’s. He’s in over his head undercover at the Haven, a swanky gay sex club, determined to find out why members of the club keep vanishing. Five minutes inside and he can no longer deny the truth about his sexuality. He turns to the one man he can’t get out of his head, the sexy ex-cop handling security. Too bad Kevin doesn’t trust cops. Not since the only night he let himself be with another man.
Walter Simon doesn’t do the club scene anymore. Not since he found love and lost it. That doesn’t mean he’ll let anyone hurt more innocent gay men. Even if that means going head-to-head with the klutzy, closeted, much-younger reporter. Kevin has information about the disappearances. Better to keep him close. And safe.
Neither is at the club to hook up or fall in love. Now they must work together amid their growing passion in order to uncover the truth before more men disappear.
The Haven Series
Review:
More was one of the first threesome romances that I read and I enjoyed the complicated relationship side of the novel very much. Though I found the side issue Luke had with his father, unbelievable and melodramatic. So I was interested to read this novel to see how a more prominent suspenseful plot worked this time round.
I was engaged by the dramatic plot of young men disappearing from the nicely named sex club Haven, and cared about the victims as the glimpses we see of them made them more than throwaway victims. In particular Seth is well developed into a real character. However while I found the action scenes kept my attention, I didn’t really believe in the situation. It felt drawn out, over complicated as there was a fair amount of almost saving the day, but oh no, and off we’d go again – with a bad guy who just kept turning up, like a relentless energiser bunny.
The relationship side of a story is always my preference anyway. However one of my initial problems was with Walter Simon, one of the main men here who also appeared in More. Probably erroneously I got the impression that he was much older, or at least less of a gorgeous physical presence than he is meant to be this time round. It took a while for my impression of the other Walter, retired cop with unfashionable name, to mesh with this hot guy who is hit on continually at the sex club. The difference in ages between the two guys, Walter at forty eight and Kevin, thirty, but looking and and acting like Bambi on ice, is overused to add an unnecessary level of conflict. We already have to deal with details of a closeted guilty repressed klutz and tortured haunted cop with an angsty past to provide relationship tension. I found that while I really liked some elements of both characters, there was always something else that jarred and just took me out of believing in them together. Kevin was an effective investigative journalist but combined this with being the clumsy guy in comical underpants. This apparently adorable trait also detracted from some potentially red hot sex scenes for me. I also felt that the writer’s determination that Kevin save himself and not be a victim, forced Walter into an awkward ineptness that was contrived.
The element that I most liked was the social set up of enduring friendships between characters common to both books and initially arising from the Haven. This background to the story was very strong and helped ground some of the action. Overall, while there was too much going on here to make this a success for me; the writing kept my attention hopeful and I did want to know how it all turned out.
I really loved this book, klutzy hero and all, better than either More or Breathe. It just goes to show how readers differ!
Hello lawless, you are in good company with many readers on Goodreads 😀 but then so am I……just one of those dividing books I guess. It is amazing sometimes when I read a review I think, did they read the same book as me! I bet you had one of those moments too. 😯
Well said, Raine! I know exactly what you mean. The age-difference thing was seriously overused!
Thanks Feliz, the whole thing was rather over stuffed for me, so the whole age difference emphasis felt too much. I really did enjoy More too. 🙂
The best book that Sloan has written to date is still More that I reviewed almost 3 years ago. I really loved that book but nothing else she’s written seems to come up to my expectations. This book sounds a bit like Breathe where I had similar difficulties like you’re having here — too many complications that didn’t work and a mystery that didn’t jell at all.
I’m going to read this one but I don’t remember Walter being hot and young. 😀
That is quite reassuring, cos my idea of the original Walter was an irritation for a long while and it did not help. 😕 Thank you Wave.
Great review, but I am still undecided 🙂
I have just read other reviews and there are some very keen ones as well as others who did not like it…..quite a range in fact. I think Goodreads average is just under 4. Actually see if you like Kevin from extract, that might help you decide. 😀
Ugh never mind – apparently I did some sleep shopping before and bought it so I will have to read it eventually 🙂
Sleep shopping……I want to do that it sounds cool and a great excuse for the credit card bill…..which is due this week. 😮
I wish I could take a credit for this particular bit of coolness ;), but a friend of mine told me that this is how she justifies purchases she does not remember making :). I decided I liked.
This might go on my to read list one day, just not in a rush to read it, I like mystery/suspense a lot though
So, a maybe 😉
Thanks for the review
This one was a tough call because I wanted to really thoroughly enjoy it, but I found myself making excuses for the characters way too often. It was just flawed for me, but if you like the klutzy hero type of book it might be more appealing to you. 😀
Unless you count Ty & Zane I don’t really have a type, as long as they are fairly well fleshed out
Sighs over Ty and Zane! :hearts02: