BrotherlyRating: 3.75 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novella


Tristan has been fighting for years. Fighting himself, fighting his emotions, and fighting against family time, all because he is fighting against his love for Trevor, who was raised as his brother.

Even when Tristan found out that he wasn’t related to Trevor by blood, he kept himself busy with sports to keep out of the house and took extra classes culminating with him going to college at sixteen, all to keep the distance from Trevor and what Tristan thinks are his deviant thoughts.

friends and enemiesTo get his feelings out, Tristan writes an anonymous blog to try to quiet his turmoil and while the blog catches the eye of a publisher, it does nothing to quell the churning desire running through him for Trevor. Every time Tristan has to endure returning home, one glance at Trevor has his mind spinning and his libido racing. Trevor has always played the field and has gone through many of the boys in their town as well as the next, but, when Trevor finally brings home a boyfriend, Tristan flees as he has to try to come to terms that Trevor will never be his. Only this time Trevor follows.

This story puts a bit of a spin on the friends-to-lovers theme for while Tristan and Trevor are certainly friends, they were raised as brothers, although they do find out at an earlier age that they are not blood related.

Tristan is miserable. I mean he has been absolutely miserable for most of his life pining for Trevor and then berating and loathing himself for his thoughts and feelings. He has done everything he can think of to put distance between them and, while he has tried dating, there is no one and nothing that feels right and his heart feels like he is betraying Trevor. This was the area that the author excelled in as Tristan’s character and motivations and feelings were well drawn.

To rest his mind somewhat, Tristan writes an anonymous blog about his feelings for Trevor. It’s just a way for him to cope and send his thoughts out into the world and since he has the comments are disabled, it does not allow for discussion. The blog posts started out interesting, but then could have tied back to the present day story a little bit more for me rather than being in the general sense. Also, the blog attracts the eye of a publisher who comes off as a little stalkerish and then offers Tristan a deal that is nothing short of outrageous by reality standards.

The majority of the book leading up to any sort of reveal was emotional and more intense, but once Trevor was more on page it lost some of that. Then, the intimate scenes, which should have been more powerful, went in the opposite direction for me and lost a lot of the tension that had been built up throughout the entire book.

This was a book that I really enjoyed reading, but then upon analyzing it for review, it did not leave me with the same impression at first glance as it did at the end. Overall though, at face value, I enjoyed reading about the evolving relationship of Tristan and Trevor and as this book is billed as the first in a series, I would be definitely be interested in seeing what comes next.

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