British-isms abound in Charlie Cochrane's Second Helpings, in which family and a stiff upper lip limn the limits of public discourse.  Here's a snippet of my review that was posted on All About Romance today:

A father and son move on with their lives after the deaths of their spouses when a former classmate of the father reappears with her grown son in this very British gay romance.
   
Stuart Collins is pleased but a little stunned when his father Roddy starts dating Isabel Franklin, a widow he'd known years ago in school. When Roddy suggests Stuart start dating again, Stuart isn't quite sure he's ready to move on after his partner Mark died in a car accident the year before.

But when Stuart meets Isabel's son Paul, who's concerned his wealthy mother might be hooking up with a gold-digger, he's attracted to the man but put off by the suspicions his salt-of-the-earth father might be conniving for Isabel's money. As they hash out their parents' attraction and its possible outcomes, Stuart and Paul form a bond and then relationship that slowly melds into a love affair.

Of the two, the heart-broken Stuart is the more sympathetic at first, but as Paul gradually sheds his over-protectiveness for his mother, he too becomes a delightful young man. In fact, they share a passion for science, Stuart being a forensics expert whose cases often depress him, while Paul is a research scientist for a petrol company.

During a major part of the book, Paul is pining for Ben, a man he met and thought was going to be his life partner in the United States. Ben was supposed to find a job in Britain and join Paul there to start their new life. But Ben seems to have disappeared from view. So while Stuart is trying to come to terms with Mark's death, Paul is struggling with whether he should act on his attraction to Stuart or try to reconcile Ben's phone and computer silence as just a misunderstanding that can be explained.

Both men attack their problems in a mature, very subdued British manner; neither is given to over-emotional outbursts.

Read the rest of my review at All About Romance.

Provincetown Romance Turns to Purple Prose

While I was at the Romantic Times convention, this review of Jacob Z. Flores' latest, When Love Comes to Town, ran at The Romance Reviews:

In the 4th Provincetown romance, Flores falls under the spell of purple prose and Family Week at the gay resort.

Brody O'Shea, last seen as Teddy's boyhood lover in When Love Gets Hairy, is the odd man out as family and friends gather for the marriage of Zach and Van whose romance was central in When Love Takes Over.

Brody is particular about who he will love, but not with whom he shares a night of sex. His parents left him with a skewed image of marriage, so as Brody has worked his way through the Provincetown offerings, he's kept a list of the things he wants and doesn't want in a partner. At the top of his list is a man without children.

Eric Vasquez, a cop who two years before lost his husband, is bringing his daughter Mattie to his cousin Van's wedding from a small town across the state of Massachusetts. When Eric gets there and sees how many of Van and Zach's friends are paired up, he misses his husband who died in an accident even more.

But as the odd men out, Brody and Eric are paired up more and more as the wedding plans come together. As they do, both come to change their minds about what they thought were important considerations: Brody finds he likes Mattie and has formed a bond with her, and Eric realizes that his husband would want him to go on living, not pining for the rest of his life.

Jacob Z. Flores' mix of humor and fond depictions of what initially seem shallow men who end up showing amazing depth is at the forefront of this novel as it has been in his others.

Read the rest of the review at The Romance Reviews.