Thursday, August 30, 2018

Spotlight-Review & Giveaway: PATCHWORK PARADISE by Indra Vaughn



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Cover Design: Dar Albert
Length: 205 pages


Blurb

Oliver and Samuel’s relationship is fairy-tale perfect. They share a gorgeous house in Antwerp, go out with their friends every weekend, and count down the days to their dream wedding. But their happy ending is shattered one late night, and just like that, Ollie is left bereft and alone.

The months that follow are long and dark, but slowly Ollie emerges from his grief. He even braves the waters of online dating, though deep down he doesn’t believe he can find that connection again. He doesn’t think to look for love right in front of him: his bisexual friend Thomas, the gentle giant with a kind heart and sad eyes who’s wanted him all along.

When Thomas suddenly discovers he has a son who needs him, he’s ill prepared. Ollie opens up his house—Sam’s house—and lets them in. Ollie doesn’t know what scares him more: the responsibility of caring for a baby, or the way Thomas is steadily winning his heart. It will take all the courage he has to discover whether or not fairy tales can happen for real.


Carra's Review

This book pushed every emotional button I have and for most of the first half of the story I was in tears.  The fact that the author could evoke such a response from me already had me loading up all the stars for this book right at the start.  What Oliver went through losing Sam the way he did was beyond devastating, and while I was enchanted by the two of them from the beginning of the book, my heart was leaping from my chest to wrap Oliver up once the unthinkable had occurred.

Watching as Oliver gets back to work, his friends, and just his life in general is painful at times but there are also points of hope.  Through it all his friends are there for him, and in particular Thomas—who has loved him for ages, but while Oliver was with Sam there was nothing to act upon.  Things between Oliver and Thomas develop quite slowly, and there always seem to be obstacles in their way either on Oliver’s side or on Thomas’s.  Suffice to say their path is not at all straight (no pun intended), and just when you think they might be able to try something else gets in the way.

But even once that way is clear, there’s just one more tiny thing that comes up.  Only it’s not so tiny at all (other than physical size) when Thomas finds out he has a child.  Talk about obstacles…but even this can’t stop the growing connection between Oliver and Thomas, and it felt so good to see their relationship finally get the chance to develop.  To be honest, given the incredibly powerful emotional impact of Oliver and Sam’s connection and everything that happened, it was a bit harder to feel quite as strongly with Oliver and Thomas.  Don’t get me wrong—Oliver and Thomas were amazing together, it’s just hard to follow a matchup as intense as what Oliver had with Sam and have another relationship measure up the same.

There were some points when the story did feel just the slightest bit drawn out.  Also, I wasn’t happy with Sam’s parents (his father in particular) and what they were trying to do, though I do see how it played its part in the story.  They came across as insensitive (mostly Sam’s father), and things never felt fully resolved with them.


In the end, Patchwork Paradise was a 4.5-star read for me, and since this was the first book I’ve read by this author I’m now looking forward to checking out her backlist as soon as possible.  I do highly recommend this story to M/M romance fans, especially if you’re a fan of hurt/comfort and friends to lovers stories; just be sure to keep a filled box of tissues handy, at least to get you through the first half of the book.  This story is meant for readers 18+ for adult language, dealing with the grief of losing a loved one, and some sexual content.


Author Bio

After living in Michigan, USA for seven wonderful years, Indra Vaughn returned back to her Belgian roots. There she will continue to consume herbal tea, do yoga wherever the mat fits, and devour books while single parenting a little boy and working as a nurse.



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