Rating: 4.25 stars
Buy Links:  Amazon | All Romance
Length: Novella

Sam Campbell is a struggling artist and general beach bum.  He is also somewhat of an arrogant playboy, picking up men for the night for some fun with no interest in anything more.  Sam is confident in his abilities both to attract guys and treat them well in bed.  So not necessarily a bad guy, but one without much motivation and a perhaps an overabundance of self confidence.

One day while cruising the streets, checking out hot guys, Sam’s eye is caught by a gorgeous blond blind man.  Sam is drawn to the beautiful man immediately, but wary at the sight of his cane. As a no commitment, no obligation kind of guy, Sam isn’t sure getting involved with a blind man is a good idea. But when he sees the man holding up a “Taxi” sign, something possesses Sam to pull over and offer him a ride.  He convinces himself he is not deluding the guy; he never actually claimed to be a taxi right? But the man quickly figures out what is up and Sam runs into trouble for his bad behavior.

Yet somehow Sam can’t get this guy off his mind.  It turns into a challenge for him to convince Blondie to go out with him. The more time Sam spends with the man, the more he admires his determination and his motivation, so unlike Sam’s normal apathetic style. Eventually Sam convinces Blondie to go out on a date (finally learning his name is Kieran), then another, and soon finds himself falling for Kieran totally unexpectedly.  But once Sam finally has accepted that he wants to be with Kieran, to give his heart away to someone for the first time, their happiness is threatened and Sam almost loses the one person who has come to mean everything to him.

So I will admit I was a bit wary of this one at the start, mostly because of the title.  But I decided to give it a try because I enjoy reading stories with diverse main characters and I was interested to read about the conflict of these two different personalities.  And I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this story.  First off, you have to know from the start that Sam is pretty much an arrogant ass as the story begins.  He readily admits to his behavior and makes no apologies for it. Whatever Sam tells himself, he knows picking up Kieran is wrong.  But Kieran is hot and Sam wants him and that is about all it takes.  But as the book continues, I was amused at Sam’s near exasperation with himself as he realizes his behavior is crazy, totally uncharacteristic, and fairly stalkerish, yet he just can’t help himself. Something about Kieran just calls to him and he can’t stay away. Here Sam is picking Kieran up for their first date:

I’m an asshole, okay? Did I fail to mention that at the start of this tale? What did you want? Prince Charming? Does he even exist? I like to suck, to fuck, to spank, to lick, and lots of things in-between your mother wouldn’t approve of. I like to wake up with my bed rumpled and my sheets stained but the guy having done the decent thing and taken himself off so I don’t have to see his unshaven face the next day and smell his beer breath.

Tonight I’d be responsible for getting my date home if he came back to my place. Better to go to his place then, and creep out while he was asleep. Still I was edgy and anxious. He’d made me feel like such a bastard just by accepting my invite. He’d made me look inside myself and see the coldness and I didn’t like it one bit. So why was I going? Well, I was going to get laid out of this, wasn’t I? Even if it would be the most difficult fuck of my life.

So guilty and nervous was I that on the way I stopped at a flower seller a block from his apartment and bought a bouquet of red roses. Analyse that one however you want, saves me from having to do it. For the record I never bought a guy flowers in my life. I bought guys dildos and anal beads. Flowers, never.

I walked to the apartment wearing my best shirt, my best pants, doused in cologne and hair gel and carrying flowers like I was desperate to do a lot more than fuck the ass off Blind Blondie for one night only.

For his part, I appreciated that Kieran recognizes that Sam has pretty much lost it and treats him with the wariness appropriate to the situation.  He pretty clearly tells Sam to back off more than once, but over time he gets to know Sam better, lets down his guard, and begins to fall for him as well. Yes, only in romance novels can practically stalking a guy be romantic, but I think it works here because there is so much humor in Sam’s exasperated POV that I could overlook his bad behavior.  Both men are so scared — Kieran of finding someone who will really care about him and stick with him despite his blindness, and Sam of falling for someone hard when he has never before been interested in anyone but himself.  They end up being quite sweet (and hot) together and I like the unexpectedness of their pairing.

I did find the story suffered from a bit of “magic partner” syndrome in that pretty much everything that ails Sam seems to be cured by meeting Kieran.  He becomes more motivated, quickly achieves great career success, finds the perfect match in bed, and is suddenly ready to commit himself completely to Kieran and his dog.  It is not just insta-love on his part (although we get that too), but just perhaps too much perfect resolution to all of his problems upon finding this perfect man.

But overall I really enjoyed this one and quickly read it in one sitting. I found Sam endearing despite his flaws in a way you only can in a fictional character. I liked seeing him stymied for the first time and having to really work to win Kieran’s heart.  And I found the guys quite cute and loving together. So this ended up being a really pleasant surprise for me and a nice enjoyable story.