- Title: Shattered Glass
- Author: Dani Alexander
- Series: Book 1 in the Shattered Glass series
- Genre(s): Contemporary M/M Romantic Suspense
- Publisher: Self-Published, January 2012
- Purchase: Amazon, $2.99
- Tropes: Insta-Love, Cops, Sex-for-Hire, Gangsters
- Quick blurb: Cop falls in love with rent boy. With some Russian mob stuff thrown in.
- Quick snark: The main character need to sit down and STFU. Then maybe I’ll finish this.
- Grade: DNF (for now)
Two words: Bunny. Slippers. How could I NOT buy this???
A male prostitute, a mangy cat, a murder and an obsession that threatens his career, his impending marriage and his life. Nothing is going as planned for Austin Glass.
Austin Glass seems to have it all: A loving fiancee, a future with the FBI and a healthy sized trust fund. At least on the surface. He also has a grin and a wisecrack for every situation. But the smile he presents to the world hides a painful past he’s buried too deeply to remember, and his quips mask bitterness and insecurity. Austin has himself and most of the whole world fooled—until he meets a redhead in a pair of bunny slippers.
As events unfold in the biggest case of his life, Austin’s carefully planned future unravels, and he finds himself pushed into making quick, life-changing decisions. But can he trust himself or anything he feels, when each event seems to be just a series of volatile reactions?
I was sure I was going to love this because of all the rave reviews, but I gave up about halfway through because it just left me exhausted. I felt like I needed to get my anxiety meds adjusted or something.
The plot….
The pace of this book just seemed over-the-top relentless – I can’t decide if “frantic” or “frenetic” would be the best word. I needed a little emotional downtime or a few introspective moments in between the rent boy/drug dealer/Russian mob (really ???) plot craziness and the snarkiness of the dialogue.
Hero A….
I’m hooked on m/m romance because there’s a 50/50 chance of a good beta hero who’s an actual grown-up and not an overgrown teenager. But not this one, unfortunately. Even though Austin was 26 years, a cop and an FBI-wannabe, I constantly had the urge to treat him like my 8-year-old and say “Sit down. Take a deep breath. When you can talk to me in a regular voice, then I can listen better.”
In other words, “Austin, sit down, SHUT THE FUCK UP and try to act like a rational human being for TWO FUCKING SECONDS.”
Hero B….
Two words: Bunny. Slippers.
Now let me tell you what I REALLY think….
On the plus side, I loved the author’s “voice,” and she made me laugh out loud in a few places. If I ever finish I’ll have to give it a C just for being memorable – but I’d never want to spend time with these characters in real life unless I absolutely had to.
It’s on my Did Not Finish shelf for now, but I truly intend to try again soon – and I’ll definitely look for more by Dani Alexander in the future.
This book has gotten such great reviews, and I totally bailed on it halfway through, too. I’m not sure what didn’t sit right with me, but I just dug my heels in and that was it. Not going one page further. Definitely agree that it at least made an impression (which is a lot more than can be said for a lot of books) and the author shows a lot of promise, but this book was not the book for me. (It’s always good to know I’m not alone!)
I know – I *hate* it when I don’t enjoy something that reviewers and other authors I respect rave about. Although I think I might add a few bonus points for such a lovely cover